(Tom) Hello and welcome to Arizona Illustrated.

I'm Tom McNamara.

We come to you in early April with all-new stories.

In fact, this week we begin a six-part series called Where to Live.

We'll take a deep dive into the housing crisis that our community is facing and we'll explore what, if anything, can be done about it.

So please stay tuned.

(upbeat music) First up in our series, "Where to Live," a local effort keeps students off the streets and in the classrooms.

(Elizabeth) Our goal is to help our youth stay in high school and reach that goal of high school graduation because that is a real turning point.

(Tom) Plus, we'll take you on a journey into the enchantingly loony world of international theater artist, Wolfe Bowart.

(Wolfe) The joy is when you have that audience and then it's there's that connection and you're live and you're in the moment.

(Tom) And a local community comes together to remember the life and legacy of a promising young track star.

(Gaizka) Celebrate him that way.

Bring everybody together, because when you do that, then you bring all these different people, you have all these different pieces of Lezo.

(music) (Tom) On any given night in the United States, tens of thousands of adolescents are homeless.

For them, pursuing an education might be just a pipe dream.

But here in Pima County, a group has been helping these students for decades, providing them with financial assistance and basics such as food and toiletries.

They've helped thousands of our young community members stay off the streets and in classrooms through graduation.

As part of our eight-week-long series, "Where to Live," here's an introduction to Youth On Their Own.

(Ann) My name is Ann Young.

I am the founder of Youth on Their Own.

I started it in 1986 at Amphi High School with the help of many, many, many, many people and lots of mistakes and wins and things along the way but we got her going and now it's a wonderful program.

It was a wonderful program before but it's even better now.

(MC) We're incredibly excited about this huge investment in YOTO youth and YOTO's future.

[Clapping] (Ann) We had several, especially senior girls who were couch kids as we called them.

They were living from couch to couch and sometimes they'd come to me and say, or to their teachers and say I think I'm going to have to drop out of school and get another job because I can't stay at the couch I'm at right now.

They're moving or something has happened.

(Elizabeth) Our goal is to help our youth stay in high school and reach that goal of high school graduation because that is a real turning point and will really help determine the direction of their future.

Housing isn't necessarily what they need from us.

What they need is financial support which is the main thing that we do.

We provide youth with an earned education stipend that's based on their attendance.

So the more they go to school every month the more money they can earn from YOTO and that's just to cover their basic necessities.

We're here to offer the help and their part of the arrangement is that they're going to keep going to school.

In addition we provide all their basic needs for free like food, hygiene supplies, school supplies, transportation needs, whatever the barrier is that would keep them from going to school.

Our goal is to try to intervene and provide that thing so they can get to school.

We have a wonderful staff of program coordinators that work individually one on one with the youth in our program to try to identify what are their specific needs, what are their individual barriers that would keep them from school and how can YOTO step in and help support them.

(Elizabeth) Hi my name is Elizabeth Camarillo Gutierrez.

I am the author of "My Side of the River" and I also work in tech.

I felt that there was a lack of stories that really talked about the way that immigration and the system impacts children.

I was born in Tucson Arizona and I actually got acquainted with the Youth on Their Own program or YOTO for short because I ended up homeless after my parents were forced to return back to Mexico due to their immigration status.

And I always knew that I wanted to pursue my education no matter the cost and I knew that the best way for me to move forward was to stay in the United States.

The biggest gift that my parents gave me was in letting me go and unfortunately that did mean that I ended up couch surfing a little bit and Youth on Their Own was always there for me in providing me the support that I needed when I felt like I had nobody else.

And they did this financially by providing me with monthly stipends and they also provided me with health care which was invaluable at the time because otherwise I wouldn't have had a way to go to the doctor or get anything else that I might have needed.

We provide a lot of supplies available to them and they get to shop here for free so they can pick whatever they need.

One week they might need a lot of food, the next week coming in they might need shampoo and deodorant.

(Elizabeth) Youth on Their Own really started to support me when I was 15 years old.

So I was a freshman in high school.

It lasted for the rest of the four years that I was in high school and throughout that their support was so unwavering.

At the end of the day it's super straightforward, non-judgmental support and that is what teenagers need, that is what people under age need to be able to pursue their education in a way that feels normal.

(Elizabeth) Adults who experience homelessness often were youth who experienced homelessness.

There is a very clear cycle and education as this key point of intervention can really break that cycle and give so many more opportunities to these youth.

Elizabeth has shared her personal story with her newly released memoir.

Wohoo.

(Elizabeth) I kept pushing forward with the knowledge that I had a community that was there for me that was supporting me and they wanted to see me succeed.

And I ended up graduating from the University of Pennsylvania in 2018 and had some crazy opportunities, obviously like writing and giving a TED Talk which led to a book deal and now we have that book that is published today.

It is really, really exciting to be here and to have the opportunity and to have my voice just be supported in the way that it has.

(MC) I want to thank you all for making your generous contributions to YOTO.

(Elizabeth) We really try to motivate supporters in the community by thinking about what's possible.

If they get involved and take a chance and really support these young people, we can have a huge impact on the rest of their life and we are seeing it happen and it is so inspiring and I feel really very lucky to work here.

(Ann) I just run into so many kids in their 40s.

Young people, young adults telling me that Youth on Their Own saved their lives.

It's stories like that just make me feel good all over.

You know.

(Tom) By the way, YOTO says it had an 86% graduation rate among seniors last year, which is higher than the state average.

For more information about the group, you can go to YOTO.org and to follow along with our eight-week series, "Where to Live," where we'll be investigating the complexities of our current housing crisis.

Just go to our website, news.azpm.org/wheretolive As a playwright and performer, Wolfe Bowart has produced theater around the globe.

And recently, he's been the artist-in-residence at Tucson's Scoundrel and Scamp Theater, where he and his mentee, Xochitl Martinez, have been enchanting audiences of all ages with their unique style of physical comedy.

♪ COMICAL MUTED TRUMPET (Wolfe) Seeing a child discover their foot and then put it in their mouth is classic physical comedy.

Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Jacques Tati are physical comedians because they're using their bodies to tell the joke.

[ SPEAKING GIBBERISH ] [ CHILD LAUGHS ] (Wolfe) My name is Wolfe Bowart and I'm a visual, physical comedian.

As we grow up sometimes we lose that sense of wonder and we're trying to fit in.

But I continued to study that childlike discovery of the world.

♪ COMICAL MUTED TRUMPET ENDS WITH A FLOURISH ♪ ♪ JAZZY DRUM ROLL [BLADES CLANKING] (Wolfe) Why did I continue to do that?

Telling story gives that audience a sense of awe and wonder and it makes us giddy or we giggle, transport us back to being a kid again.

♪ JAZZY DRUM ROLL (Wolfe) My family had artists in the family.

As a kid, I was a natural clown and learned circus skills at a young age.

I was doing magic shows.

I'd been doing them making films, painting, sculpture, puppet shows, all these things I was doing as a kid.

I never really thought of it as a career.

♪ SOFT CRYSTAL ORGAN ♪ (Wolfe) I took a few years off between high school and college, and I street performed.

So I did that for a while and then I realized, oh, I can go to university and study theater.

I went into Cornish College of the Arts, it was called at the time, and studied theater, the classics.

So we did Brecht and Beckett and Shakespeare.

And then there was a point when I realized that I'm a physical comedian, which implies humor, and I just sold a police drama.

I'm doing cops on TV, but it wasn't like that's what I want to do.

When I grow up, I don't want to continue to do this.

When do you grow up?

Wait, am I there yet?

♪ LIGHT HEARTED PIANO AND ACCORDIAN ♪ ♪ MANDOLIN (Wolfe) My wife and I decided that we would go to Europe and start touring these productions.

(Kerryn) Wolfe and I are married.

I was actually working in the film industry in LA and Wolf was working in theater.

After we got married, we decided to combine our separate talents and our skill and create a theater company.

I've for many years worked very closely with Wolfe on helping to produce his work.

Enabling it to connect with audiences around the world.

(Kerryn) Our theater company was a theater company with a difference because the kind of work that Wolfe does is quite hard to pigeonhole.

His work hearkens back to these wonderful traditions of the likes of Charlie Chaplin, And his work draws on those traditions, but also sort of presents a fresh perspective.

♪ MUSIC SLOWLY FADES, NEW GUITAR MUSIC BEGINS ♪ (Wolfe) The process for creating a production can begin with a simple idea.

I have Moleskine notebooks and hundreds of them and they're all full of quirky ideas over the years and I go back and read them.

But when I get an idea for a show, it might take a year or two of development and eventually I script it out almost like a children's book.

Then I write out what the visuals are.

Maybe there's a light note or a sound note and then there's drawings that go with it often.

Naturally these scripts become linear and eventually it finds its own logic or narrative.

Always with the production there's a lot of skill involved.

The actor doesn't know how to juggle plates for example, they're going to be learning to juggle plates.

[HOLLOW PLATE SOUNDS] Once you're running the show there's a lot of repetition to get it into your bones because it's like learning lines and your lines are in your in your body and in the rhythm of the music sound and rhythm of the piece.

♪ JAZZY MUSIC, BROOM STICKS CLACKING ♪ (Kerryn) It's a joy now to be able to bring a small part of the larger work that Wolfe has done around the world here to Tucson.

On this stage here at the Scoundrel and Scamp in somewhat of an experimental form, you know, he's pulling pieces from his larger works that he's been touring globally and incorporating them into a smaller experimental production.

"I'll hold you up once you get there."

"Yeah, I mean, I don't know."

(Bryan) So one of the reasons that we work with Wolfe is because he's unlike any other theater artists we've ever encountered.

He takes this mixture of magic and circus arts and physical theater and visual theater and poetry and all these pieces and he brings it together into a piece that just delights.

Physical theater is universal.

Physical theater gives us a way be able to reach audiences we otherwise could not reach.

♪ GUITAR STRUMMING ♪ The other beauty of this is that he's sharing his experience with the next generation in the form of Xochitl Martinez.

"Yeah, just do that.

Look, look up" [ LAUGHTER ] I initially met Wolfe when I was working on a production called the Sonoran Desert Carol, and he came in to help with props, and specifically he made this puppet set for me, so I could do like a one-person puppet show at the very beginning of the show.

That's how I initially met him, and then later that year I auditioned for a show called One Twig at a Time, which is when we first started working together on the same show, officially.

After One Twig had ended, the theatre reached out to me and proposed an idea of a physical theatre fellowship.

They wanted to allow me to work more with Wolfe and collaborate more, and this is what ended up being The Wobo Show.

♪ UPBEAT VIOLIN, SPINNING PLATES ♪ (Xochitl) I get to learn a lot from him, and we get to work with guest artists, and so it's just a really great opportunity to develop my skills.

♪ UPBEAT VIOLIN (Kerryn) When you're sitting in the audience and all enjoying a show together, and everyone's laughing together, there's something really cathartic, there's something really joyous about having that experience with other people.

(Wolfe) The joy is when you have that audience, and then there's that connection, and you're live, and you're in the moment, and you can feel them, they can feel you, and there's an exchange of energy and electricity, and it's real.

And then when it's over, there's a bow, and they all leave, and that will never happen again.

♪ UPBEAT VIOLIN, ENDS [APPLAUSE] (Tom) Sports have a remarkable way of forging connections, both on and off the track.

In Tucson, the legacy of Lezo Urreiztieta, a standout hurdler and Canyon Del Oro High School alum, continues to inspire.

His journey transcends the finish line, leaving an imprint on all the lives he encountered.

And as we approach what would have been his 31st birthday, we take a look at his remarkable story and at what it means to be Lezo like.

(music) Did we know we were having a boy?

(Izarro) Yes.

(Melissa) Yeah, we already knew so we were pretty excited for Gaizka to have a little brother.

[Harp music] They were so close in age and Gaizka really was like, "Who is this?

What is this?"

It took a while.

It took like three years, I would say, for them to really click, but Gaizka was, like I said, three.

And then after that, we had a blast with them.

We were very... (Izarro) It was always fun.

(Melissa) Yeah.

They were really good kids.

(Gaizka) We did everything together.

It was even a bit of a joke, but, you know, we figured that someday we'd live in the same neighborhood and we'd have our wives and our families together.

When I started dating Gaizka, I met Lezo and I had to befriend him.

It was like I had to get Lezo's approval in order to keep dating Gaizka.

So that's when I first met him.

I remember the first time he ever gave me a hug and I was like, "Oh, I've made it," but he would only give me a high five at first to prove myself.

(Gaizka) And then he came on like every date he could squeeze into.

(Hayley) Yeah, and then we couldn't get rid of him.

And then it was like, it was always the three of us.

(Melissa) Here we are.

Hi, Gaizka.

(Gaizka) Hey.

(Izarro) We always believed in athletics.

And we felt that it was important to keep them busy.

(Melissa) Very competitive.

(Izarro) Very competitive.

(Melissa) Very competitive with one another.

Let's go, let's go Lezo.

Run, run, run, run.

(Gaizka) Lezo was just a heck of a competitor.

We both hate losing and Lezo and I really were pretty aggressive with each other, had a lot of fun competing.

(Melissa) He was the first freshman, according to Michelle Gerard, that could three-step between the hurdles.

And so I guess it's a big deal, right?

(Izarro) Yeah.

(Melissa) To be able to do that.

(Gaizka) It started to show probably end of his sophomore year, junior year, really where he was headed.

[Bass heavy song] At the beginning of his senior year, he dropped that 14.44 and really, I think that's when he started to get a little bit of attention from Coach Harvey.

(Harvey) Almost like in his mind disbelief like why are you talking to me?

But it was really cute because you know again that just tells you who that young man you know was in terms of you know his ego inside okay I work hard I do this but yeah this is the University of Arizona.

One of the very rare situations in my actual coaching and recruiting you know career that I had to convince a young person that they can compete at this level.

(Gaizka) I remember asking Lezo what do you think are you gonna do this and again he wasn't really really sold yet but I remember telling him look you have an opportunity to do something and this opportunity will this is the only time you're gonna have it.

You don't know what what you might be able to take your body and your mind you know what what levels you can take yourself to.

(Harvey) For him it was easy I mean and the training wasn't easy but what I was asking of him was very very easy.

We have very early training sessions because it allows him to be able to get that in have the bulk of time throughout the day to be able to handle what we need to do academically.

(Hayley) Lezo became one of my best friends and we took classes together because we both wanted to go to med school and become doctors and so that became something that we bonded over.

(Gaizka) It was fun to to watch him run too and we'd go to you know meets that we could if they're local.

(Harvey) I always have a, an annual Halloween party for my team and we dress up and that year he dressed up as you know he and his guys they were the blue men.

[Drone sound increases] (Izarro) Halloween evening of 2013 he was at a stoplight at Oracle and El Conquistador and he got rear-ended.

(Melissa) But it was minor.

He got whiplash.

(Izarro) It wasn't a huge crash but he got a little whiplash.

A few days after that he felt dizzy.

(Melissa) He started vomiting because he was in Chem Cat class and the lights and everything and he started vomiting from it.

(Izarro) They took it seriously and they took him to UMC.

(Gaizka) They did a scan and found that he had a malformation in his in his brain near his cerebellum and that was the initial discovery at that point.

(Melissa) That is a collection of blood vessels that was in his cerebellum and it's from birth.

It's congenital.

When they saw it they were very alarmed and they said if it bursts again he could you know have a massive stroke.

They determined that you know this thing's going to be a problem over time.

You have to do something about it or you're rolling the dice and Lezo said I don't want to roll the dice.

I want to be aggressive and figure this out.

(Melissa) It was on December 20th and we thought that we had everything in control because we thought we're doing it over Christmas.

And he said, "I can't run and I can't do things if I know that that is going to be in my head."

They took him back and got him prepped, you know, gowned and everything.

It was like probably at least four hours.

A surgeon came out and said, "You know, everything seems to be great."

"Everything went fine according to plan."

(Hayley) I remember Gaizka's parents telling us, like, "You guys should go home."

"Go get something to eat."

"Go rest."

We were just like kind of dozing off on the couch and then we got the call from your mom that he wasn't breathing.

And I remember us talking several times and saying, "Man, when Lezo comes out of this, he's going to be shocked to hear that all this happened."

He won't believe that he had to go back for another surgery.

And then I think we came home pretty late that night.

We came back here.

(Gaizka) Yeah, that's right.

(Hayley) And then I was asleep on the couch and your dad walked in and said he was gone.

[Dramatic acoustic guitar music] (Melissa) And that is a complication of the surgery.

You can die from a stroke.

He died from a stroke.

(Izarro) He might have lived the rest of his life 'til his old age with it, if it never burst again.

(Hayley) They did the test for brain death.

They did all those tests, the apnea tests, all those things and confirmed it.

And then it was like, then you start talking about organ donation.

And so it was like, then that became the thing that they were talking about.

(Harvey) It was so hard to believe, you know, someone like that, a person that had so much for the world, you know, why?

You know, we'll never going to know the answer to that question, but it's always a, you know, a why.

I will always ask that question, why?

(Gaizka) You imagine that there's a pane of glass, and you can see through that pane of glass, and everything that all of your hopes, your dreams, you know, the people that you love are on the other side of that pane of glass, it's like we were on the wrong side of that pane of glass, and we couldn't get through.

And that pane of glass is just a moment in time, that's all that it was, before and after.

To this day, I'm pretty crushed.

(Izarro) It's a club that you don't want to be in.

People come out of the woodwork to comfort you.

(Melissa) That you would never imagine.

(Izarro) That had lost children.

And then you realize it's a big club, there's a lot of people in that club.

You just don't want to be part of it, but you don't have a choice.

That's the thing about everything, is that you have no choice.

You have to move forward, if you can, as best you can.

(Gaizka) We wanted to celebrate somehow, and you know, Lezo being the early bird, he was always up for the sunrise, and he'd send us these photos of these gorgeous sunrises over campus.

And so we figured, well, why don't we try to go make something joyful, and then wake up on the day, on the anniversary, to you know, the sunrise.

(Melissa) We just started this thing where whoever wanted to come by for breakfast on the 20th, could come by.

(Gaizka) Celebrate him that way.

Bring everybody together because when you do that and you bring, you bring all these different people you have all these different pieces of Lezo and when you bring everybody together at once you're able to To see him in a light that you really couldn't since he was alive.

(Melissa) It helps me kind of just get through it.

(Gaizka) It's the best way to make a very difficult time, a very tough date, something positive.

And that's how we started it.

We haven't stopped since.

(Tom) He was always just there for you when you needed him.

And he was there for his family and all of his friends.

And he just loved on you 100% whenever you were with him.

(Iñaki) Just how fragile life is.

So you've got to live like Lezo every moment because you never know when it can be gone.

(Gaizka) Cheers to Lezo.

(Hayley) Cheers to Lezo.

(All) To Lezo.

(Tom) Thank you for joining us here on Arizona Illustrated.

I'm Tom McNamara.

We'll see you again next week for a continuation of our series on Tucson's housing crisis, Where to Live.