Beyond the "Street Persona"

I met "Ox" under a local freeway overpass. We were at a food service for the homeless held every Tuesday here in Nashville. He was a "big ol boy" as my Southern friends would say, and what attracted my attention immediately, besides his ox-like size and a scraggly mustache, was the fact that he was continually moving backward in the serving line as he repeatedly switched spots with women he felt were worse off than he and who were in line behind him. That evening he was wearing an obviously too-small shirt with "Who farted?" written across the front in huge- and I mean HUGE- red letters. He was embarrassed as hell about that shirt, but it was the only thing in the church donation box he could find that fit him.

I instantly liked him. That night we sat smoking and talking while listening to the gospel music that accompanies this particular meal, courtesy of the event's organizer and her well-known group of musicians and singers. By the end of the night, his gregarious personality had left such a mark on me I left the event considering him a close acquaintance, perhaps even a genuine friend.

Over the next few months, Ox and I spent a lot of time together. He did become a friend... and a damned good one at that. My wife felt the same way after spending just one day with him as he helped us move. He was just the most likable guy I think I've ever met. At that time, he was staying in one of those cheap, tiny two-man dome tents hidden in a small grove of trees and I swear, the first time I saw him enter it I thought we'd need to grease the sides with butter just to get him inside!

But in he went, and his big body immediately sucked up the space of that tent in a way I don't think I can describe here. I remember thinking he barely had enough room to get in, let alone live, dress, cook, read, sleep or exist with any level of tent-comfort at all. Frankly, he could have probably worn that tent as a moomoo and passed it off as some new avant garde fashion design, had he hung around the right crowd.

On one particular morning, I caught him snoozing and woke him up with a pouch of Bugler and a Ziploc bag of instant coffee. As I watched the sides and top of that little tent bulge, swell and bow while he dressed, I asked him if he was interested in some housing instead of another morning spent wrestling with himself in a pocket. He stuck his head out through the zipper, making me more certain than ever that the tent would have looked just fine on him, and explained to me why he wasn't in housing in the first place.

Ox had a hard time holding a job. In fact, Ox had a hard time holding just about anything besides a cigarette, coca cola and triple whopper with cheese. It wasn't because he was lazy; rather, he was what most folks would consider "slow." Ox was developmentally challenged and struggled most of his life to do the things you and I take for granted. He used to say that when he went to school, he "rode the short bus."

He also suffered from bad eyesight, chronic seizures and a host of other health issues. As a result, Ox had a difficult time maintaining long-term employment and completing most things that required sustained effort, including school (he'd been to college twice; a testament to his determination and he was proud to put this accomplishment in face of detractors who said he'd never even be able to finish high school). That he didn't graduate always bothered him and he told me often that if I was able to help him return to housing, he'd one day finish his college degree.

As we worked together over the summer to try and find housing, I had the opportunity to speak several times with his parents and they were able to tell me more about Ox than I've probably ever known about anyone else I've worked with previously on the street.

When I am working as an Outreach Trainer for the National Health Care for the Homeless Council, I often talk to my groups about the "frameworks of engagement." Part of this framework is understanding that, in the course of our interactions with people on the street, we're often dealing with someone based on a "snapshot" understanding of who they are at that point in time. The key is to remember that, like you and I, each person comes to that point in time with us just like we do; with full, often complex stories behind them. Unfortunately, because of our own constraints and demands on our time, we rarely get to develop those relationships. As a result, we're often left addressing the issues on the surface while those underneath continue to foment and perpetuate the homelessness.

As we continue building and improving the relationship with trust, respect, and sincerity, the more likely it is that the snapshot is going to flesh out into a full-fledged story. While it is always our responsibility to use that information to help provide the best assistance possible, the more trust that's built, the more likely it is you'll be told the real story, and the more likely it is that the help you provide will be more than a simple bandaid.

It turns out that Ox came from a fairly well off and very close-knit family who've called Nashville home for decades. Ox was the oldest of four children but he was also adopted. His mother confided to me that she believed Ox's real mother had been a heavy drinker and that she and her husband suspected Ox had suffered from fetal alcohol syndrome, which created many of the problems he faced in his life. They'd tried numerous ways to help Ox over his lifetime, sending him to military school, providing him with intensive counseling, paying for college, and when he dropped out, paying for trade school. When he dropped out of that, they paid for him to again return to college, where he lasted two more semesters.

About the summer of 2005 the whole family entered counseling and it was then Ox's parents were encouraged to try the "tough-love" approach. They did just that and upon returning home one day to find Ox and "some homeless guy shirtless in the middle of the living room holding a séance," they decided it was time for him to strike out on his own. They paid the initial fees and deposits for an apartment for Ox at a local complex and told him he would from that point forward be on his own.

Ox tried hard to make his family proud. He worked day labor. He applied at every restaurant and warehouse he could walk to. He networked with members of his church. But eventually, he ended up late on his rent and was ultimately evicted. He hit the street and, while still in contact with his family, was getting little help from them, primarily because they just didn't know what to do for him any longer.

This is about the point I met Ox, and it didn't take long for me to discover that Ox had some serious issues, barriers and obstacles that were blocking him from living his life in the" traditional" sense.

As we developed our relationship, I went to work and got him into an eight-man transitional housing unit, where, around people who understood Ox's limitations, he quickly began thriving. As we worked to find long-term housing, I spoke with his parents to see if they could help us cover his back rent since I had lined up an agency that would make sure he was able to pay his current rent if we could pay off his arrears. Initially skeptical, they soon noticed the improvements in their son and eventually agreed to pay off his old debt, which was prohibiting him from accessing any other housing.

Once that was done, we were able to move him from transitional housing into a permanent unit. He supplemented his meager lifestyle with some day labor employment and was slowly returning to a "normal" life off the street. He'd begun interacting with his family again and had resumed regular church attendance. He was even helping with the "Room In The Inn" program at his church, now providing shelter to those he used to hang with while on the street.

Ox died in his sleep a few days ago; the coroner believes he had a heart attack. I attended his funeral, spoke with him mother and father, sat through another service of a downed street brother. I hope his last few months were happy ones, although I believe it would have been pretty hard for Ox to have bad day; he was just that kind of friendly, happy go lucky guy.

I wish I could say Ox's story, and his death, was an anomaly.

The funeral before his, interestingly enough, was also for a person who'd spent considerable time on the streets and had only recently been placed into housing. Barbara died in her apartment on Christmas Eve after spending just a month "inside."

I missed a funeral in early December and I'm still heartbroken I didn't get to pay my respects. Patricia was a wonderful, energetic, articulate, highly educated and compassionate homeless woman who hung herself while in the throes of depression precipitated by her bipolar disorder.

Last fall I attended the funeral of Roy, a homeless man who passed away on a sidewalk just a few feet from where his sister Trisha, also chronically homeless, died around the same time the year before. Their battle with homelessness - and the ways in which they coped with it - killed them both.

Between those two deaths, I went to another. Larry, who'd also had housing for just a couple of months before he too passed away, died from complications of his AIDs and Hep C.

I helped another family with the death of their loved one (and my friend) back in February 2008; Cindy died from complications of her brittle diabetes. Her family lived in Idaho and had no idea what even become of her, let alone whathappened, where she was, or how to get her home once they learned of her passing. We eventually got her home again.

In each of these cases, and in countless others, I've been able to learn and share in the story of an anonymous face on our city streets while building a relationship, and in many cases, a friendship as well. But in all the things I've experienced over my own lifetime, I've never seen or heard of so much death among a group of otherwise 'regular' people outside of a war zone.

It makes me pay special attention to the "frameworks of engagement" as I provide outreach and whenever someone I've known leaves here, it makes me realize just how much I cherish each relationship I build with those I meet on the street. I hope I made some small positive difference in their final days here...