Oral history interview with Heidi Nissen, 2015

Biographical Note

Heidi Nissen was born in New York City in 1961, a middle child among three sisters. She spent her earliest years on the Lower East Side. When she was seven, her family moved to the Robert Fulton Projects in Chelsea. Her parents divorced and each remarried, with her father moving to Baltimore. Nissen was sexually abused by her mother's new husband. She spent time living with family friends and in a group home on Staten Island, before he left. When she was seventeen, she went to live in Baltimore with her father and then "Big Kathy," another ex-wife of her father. After a brief spell hitchhiking in Virginia and living in a Christian halfway house, she returned to New York and worked in a grocery story. While there, she injured her foot on a conveyor belt. While on vacation in Toms River, New Jersey, she met Svend Nissen. She moved to Toms River as they started a relationship. They had a son, Chris, when she was twenty-two. They moved to her mother's place in the projects, and they were briefly married before deciding to divorce. In the following years, Nissen lived with her mother and raised her son. Over the years, Nissen worked a variety of jobs including as a waitress, in fast food, at a deli, in pet care, and others. In 2002, after a series of health issues, her mother developed brain cancer. While her mother was hospitalized, Nissen was in a serious bicycle. Her mother did in 2003. Nissen began taking prescription opiates for arthritic knees. She became addicted, though she would ultimately quit cold turkey. In 2007, Nissen let rent payments and paperwork lapse for the apartment in the Robert Fulton Projects. She was evicted and spent the next few years in various shelters: Tillary Street Women's Shelter, Renaissance, and Broadway House in Brooklyn, and Casa Esperanza in the Bronx. In 2011, she received an SRO apartment in Crown Heights. In 2012, she had two knee surgeries. In 2013, she graduated from the Life-Skills Training and Empowerment Program (L-STEP), the life skills empowerment program at Xavier Mission

Scope and Contents

In this two-session interview, Heidi Nissen narrates her life story. Throughout the interview, she returns to the impact of her parents, especially her mother. She describes her father's personality, his art, his relationship with her, and his romantic relationships. She considers her mother's Iowa origins, career in nursing, her fears and disappointments, her health problems, and many other aspects of her life. Nissen shares her earliest memories on the Lower East Side and moving to the Robert Fulton Projects in Chelsea. Nissen and her mother lived there for decades, and she shares many details about the community there. Nissen recalls staying with her father and his new wife "Big Kathy" in Baltimore on several occasions. Nissen also describes sexual abuse by her mother's new husband and analyzes the resulting trauma. She describes staying with friends and the St. Michael's group home on Staten Island. She describes hitchhiking to Virginia and living there for a brief time. She also discusses her relationship with Svend Nissen, the birth of her son Chris, the upbringing of Chris, and her mother's relationship with Chris. She describes each of her parents' deaths and caring for her mother. Nissen also discusses many of her own health challenges including workplace and bicycle injuries and issues with her knees. She describes her struggles with and recovery from addiction to prescription pain medication. She also discusses her experience with homelessness in the early 2000s: her eviction, squatting in Brooklyn, personalities encountered at shelters, and conditions at shelters in Brooklyn and the Bronx. She also discusses services for locating housing, issues with this process, ultimately getting an SRO apartment, and being able to get knee surgery after finding housing. She describes her experience in the L-STEP program of the Xavier Mission and her graduation from this program. Throughout the interview, she discusses relationships with other people in her life: her sisters, her son Chris, friends, and various romantic relationships. At various points, she also muses on the theme of resiliency

Subjects

• Chelsea (Manhattan, New York, N.Y.)
• Church Avenue Merchants Block Association.
• Crown Heights (New York, N.Y.)
• Greenfield, Susan C., interviewer.
• Homelessness.
• Homeless persons--New York (State)--New York.
• Interviews.
• Nissen, Heidi, 1961--Interviews.
• Oral histories (literary works)
• Psychic trauma--Social aspects.
• Public housing--New York (State)--New York.
• Shelters for the homeless--New York (State)--New York.

Access Conditions

Copyright by Heidi Nissen. The Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York hold a non-exclusive license to enable library activities