"Homelessness is an attitude, not a lifestyle."

Becky Blanton became my friend through her generosity of spirit. At one time she was homeless and depressed, and now she is a globally recognized writer. Listen to her story and then I'll tell another one.

Homelessness is many things and most of them tragic. Becky learned that it was an attitude and not who she was as a person. She inspired many people at TED this summer and this video will inspire millions more.

Over twenty five years ago, my life was impacted by a man who was homeless. His name is Berkeley Tulloch.

Berkeley came up to me one afternoon as I was approaching my car.  On the rear window of my car was a UNC-Chapel Hill decal. He said, "I went there." I turned and found a dirty, smelly, alcoholic homeless man. My first thought, "Yeah, sure."

As it turned out, he did go to Chapel Hill. He was a Ph.D. student in philosophy when his wife and young son were killed in an auto accident. Berkeley was devastated by the loss.  As he told me, he drank through every thing he owned.

At the time I was a young associate pastor in a large Presbyterian church in Atlanta. My responsibilities were for the church's ministries in the city, which included our ministry to homeless people. Berkeley and I became friends. We talked frequently about his homelessness and the loss of his family. He clearly was searching for a way to change his existence. In the vernacular of Becky, though living without a home, Berkley was clearly trying to rid himself of the attitude of homelessness.

Over the course of a year, he took steps forward and backward. There were times I'd sit in a dirty downtown hotel room until he fell asleep in a drunken stupor. And there was the time he came to faith, was baptized and joined our church during a Wednesday Noon service that we held for business people in our neighborhood.

One day Berkeley told me that he wanted to go home. He was ready to be sober. He want to go to Raleigh to Dorothea Dix Hospital and check himself into an alcohol rehab program. I bought him a bus ticket and put him on the bus wondering if I'd ever hear or see him again.

A year later, I had a call from Berkeley. He spent three months at Dix hospital and was now in Sanford living with his brother Bill. He told me that Bill was moving and the he was going to go to Durham and live on the streets so he could help people like himself. He said that it was hard to live under a roof. The call ended. It was the fall of 1985. That was the last I heard from him.

In January of this year, I received an email from John Tulloch, Berkley's youngest brother. Over the next several months, we exchanged phone calls and email.

John described the Berkley he knew growing up.

Berk was in the 10Th grade when I was born, so my memories of him are few.  I distinctly remember hearing his voice resonate throughout our home as a mix somewhere between Perry Como and Frankie Valli.  He was the most charismatic and intelligent person I would ever know.  Just a few years ago, I learned about a painting  of Aberdeen High School he did and that it was almost thrown out (the school was demolished in the early 70's and they did not know it was a real place).  Someone recognized and retrieved it, gave it a good cleaning and it is in the museum in Aberdeen.

Berk was away most of his life, and really out of touch with us for most of the 70's.

Berkeley had not gone to Durham but to Charlotte where he eventually worked for the Salvation Army as a truck driver. John wrote me,

Berkeley died in Charlotte on March 13, 1988 at Memorial Hospital in Charlotte.  He was watching a football game (he loved football!) and ended up having a heart attack.  He survived the heart attack but succumbed to "internal bleeding" the next day. 

Becky's message of hope is echoed in Berkley's story. I find it repeated in people who have experienced trauma and tragedy in their lives. To be homeless in mind is to find yourself alienated and isolated from people and places that matter. There is hope if you want to be different, and want it enough.

Additional thoughts about homelessness.

This an edit version of comments that I made another site where Becky's video was posted.

Becky's message that homelessness is an attitude is a profound one. It requires some reflection on our part. It means that for some people they are homeless inside their homes. It may mean that they are alienated from their families, from society in general and their behaviors are socially annoying and personally destructive. We've probably all known people like this.

My point is simply that we need to follow Becky's lead and see these people not from the standpoint of their physical presence, but rather as human beings in need, just like us. As I've heard many times from people after an encounter with a homeless person, "Oh, but for the grace of God, go I."

To be homeless is a very complex experience. It is the total lost of personal structure that alienates us from the social structures that support most people. As a seminarian thirty years ago in Boston, I took a course on urban ministry. Our first three days were spent on the streets of Boston with 50 cents in our pockets, learning in a small way what it meant to be homeless. Quickly, I learned to scavage for food from discarded meals at an outdoor market. I sold blood. I slept shoulder to shoulder with other homeless men on the floor of a shelter. I stood by the magazine rack in an all night grocery store falling asleep on my feet. I loitered in the Boston Pubic Library. I rode the "T" to pass the time. And my most physical memory of the experience was how much my feet hurt.

The homeless don't need our pity. They need understanding and a structure that provides safety and security so that relationships can be formed. Giving money to panhandlers doesn't do it. They actually can do a pretty good business if they are disciplined about it. Establishing shelters where their mental and physical health can be addressed is an important part of creating the structures that make it possible for homeless people, like my friend Berkeley, to change.

I'm really grateful to Becky for her willingness to tell her story. You did a beautiful job. I hope it has a wide impact upon people across the world. It has certainly touched me by taking me back in time.

Comments

[John W. Furst]

Ed,

Thanks for adding this story to Becky's one. When I think about it, I remember two gentlemen whom I have met earlier in my life in different occasions while I was doing temp work abroad to finance my student life style at that time.

Both men must have been over forty years, divorced, one had a permanent health problem. Anyway I remember two things. A mixture between despair and hope. They were not homeless, had a job, but somehow got ripped out from their roots. Now I wonder what had happended to them.

Yours
John
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