Once-homeless Marine veteran Stephen Millhouse makes a stop in Malibu as he completes his 1,460-mile ‘one-man march’ from Montana to Skid Row in downtown Los Angeles.
by Michael Aushenker / Special to The Malibu Times
Stephen Millhouse walked past Neptune’s Net restaurant last Thursday as the sun set, by all appearances just another weathered traveler taking in scenic Pacific Coast Highway the hard way. But Millhouse, 53, is not your average hiker, and his is no typical journey. Since August, Millhouse has walked more than 1,000 miles across four states to raise awareness for homelessness.
Billed as “My One-Man March,” Millhouse started his charity mission in his hometown of Missoula, Mont., on Aug. 3, continuing through Idaho, Nevada and into California with the goal of reaching Skid Row in downtown Los Angeles on Jan. 2 at 1 p.m.
“Research shows that an average homeless person walks between three and five miles per day in search of shelter, food, water and health care services,” he wrote on his website. “A four-mile-per-day average over 365 days equals 1,460 miles a year … a number that became my target.”
Millhouse, who served in the Marines from 1976-1980 (“Nothing happened,” he said, laughing), knows homelessness firsthand.
In 2007, while working in Los Angeles as a stock clerk in a grocery store, he suffered a shoulder injury. His lawyer advised him not to go back to work since it would harm his worker’s compensation case. That decision turned disastrous.
“I went from having an apartment to having to live out of storage,” Millhouse said. “I was living out of my car in Santa Monica, Venice, wherever you could live where they didn’t boot your vehicle. And then it went from having to live out of my car.”
He moved back to his native state, where Valor House, a homeless veterans’ facility, helped him rebuild his life.
“I got a job working at Missoula Children’s Theater,” he said. “Basically, all the benefits of the VA got me back on my feet.”
By 2008, Millhouse was employed again. But this past February, tragedy struck when a drunk driver killed his niece.
“I started to reflect on my life,” he said. “I’m 53, I don’t have a wife, I don’t have kids … I wanted to memorialize her.”
The idea of a march doubled as a tribute to his niece and a way to bring awareness to the plight of the disempowered homeless. He would return to the homeless life, but this time as a choice.
He set out Aug. 3 from Missoula, walking dozens of miles a day while pulling a cart stuffed with only the bare essentials. Much of his time was occupied by the logistics of finding shelter each night.
Millhouse has camped out on roadsides and stayed in dozens of RV parks, paying $10 to pitch a tent, take a shower and use Wi-Fi. He has enjoyed the kindnesses of strangers, which he admits surprised him at first.
In Salmon, Idaho, Millhouse was invited to a family barbecue after explaining his journey. One of the partygoers dressed his feet after Millhouse mentioned he was suffering from blisters.
“That was the first of many experiences of what one guy referred to as ‘road angels,’” Millhouse said. “I was impressed by the amount of good people I met in all the states. Because I didn’t think they existed.”
There have been bumps along the way. In Twin Falls, Idaho, he suffered a stress fracture on his foot.
“Two days into Nevada, it was all swollen and I heard this pop,” he said.
Doctors at the Veterans Administration in Reno treated his injury. In Martinez, CA, a VA doctor examining him subsidized a new pair of walking boots for him out of her own pocket. As Millhouse recalled, “She said, ‘I know you won’t take my medical advice, but I’m going to do my damnedest to protect your foot.’”
The toughest leg of the trip was rural Nevada, where Millhouse sometimes traveled 70 or 80 miles between towns. He had to get out of the mountainous Donner Pass in the Sierra Nevadas before it snowed.
With no interstate highway along his route in California, Millhouse stuck to country roads and tried to find camping places without trespassing. He encountered police in Santa Barbara and prowlers in Vacaville.
The journey has been educational for Millhouse, who encountered a variety of conditions that homeless people face on a daily basis.
His goal was “staying in each town and find out what the problem is and what kind of facilities they have. There’s not a lot of shelters in the rural areas [but there are food banks].”
On Monday, Millhouse ended his journey at downtown L.A.’s Hospitality Kitchen.
Thus far, he has raised $3,000, far short of his original plan to raise $1 million to donate to food pantries in the four states he traveled through. But Millhouse says there is another component that’s crucial: community involvement.
“One of the things I advise is for people to carry a business card-size piece of paper that has information where the homeless can go,” he said. “It doesn’t have to be spare change.”
“It’s a social issue and it deserves a social solution,” Millhouse said. “You can’t just throw money at it.”
Millhouse plans to revisit his route, next time traveling through the four states with a PowerPoint presentation.
“I want to continue raising awareness and hopefully continue raising donations,” Millhouse said. “I’m not going to give up on that.”
But with his one-man march wrapped up, he’s going to take a break and return home. “I’m flying,” he said.
To learn more about and contribute to Millhouse’s cause, visit MyOneManMarch.org.