An article on AOL News reports that Debbie Clark, known as “Storm” from the early 90s show “American Gladiator,” is homeless. Like many women and children, her son and her have been homeless since they escaped a domestic violence situation a couple years ago. Adding to the problems, she has a severe knee injury from the show that makes it difficult for her to find work. Also, the knee troubles make it hard to deal with homeless shelter programs which generally make participants leave early in the morning but be back before 5–a difficulty depicted well in my opinion in the movie The Pursuit of Happyness
Although Clark received $1,500 a day for her famous job as Storm in the early 90s, she receives no royalties now from her time on American Gladiator. Of course, homelessness is more complicated than income or lack of income, and has a lot more to do with access to people who can help; in that department both of Clark’s parents died within a month of each other with little money due to two states both taxing them when they moved.
Hopefully, thanks to the publicity of the situation, maybe Clark will now get some help from fans, her former coworkers or anyone who hears about the story. Unfortunately, Clark is only one of millions of homeless people in the USA. And despite common misconceptions, most homeless people in the USA are not men, are not bums and unfortunately are not seen as much as the homeless people we do see. To that end, Clark says that when she gets back on her feet she wants to find ways to help other homeless people.