Quiet homeless man who tried never to bother anyone dies quietly, alone in vacant building

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.dailygazette.com/news/2008/jan/26/0126_homeless/

Saturday, January 26, 2008
By Michael Lamendola (Contact)
Gazette Reporter

SCHENECTADY — William “Bob” Pearce lived as a quiet man who tried never to bother anyone, even when the cold was so fierce it froze off his toes, friends said.

Pearce, a homeless alcoholic, also died quietly. Police found his body Tuesday afternoon inside a vacant building he used as a temporary shelter.

The cause of death is unknown, but police said they do not consider it suspicious. The results of an autopsy, conducted Thursday, were not available.

Pearce, 56, often slept inside the building at 758 1⁄2 State St., said Margaret Anderton, executive director of the Bethesda House, which provides services to homeless people. Anderton knew Pearce for four years and tried to help him with his addiction.

[annabanana]

1. This is sad. Goddammit.. There's NO SUCH THING

as "throw away" people.

[Warpy]

7. Terminal alcoholics tend to throw themselves away

Shame isolates them from friends and family as they lose wives, jobs, and all self respect. My ex was hiding bottles toward the end of our marriage. He wasn't hiding them from me, because when I'd find one I'd just put it out with the rest. He was hiding them from himself, trying not to admit just how much he was drinking because that would admit why he was drinking.

I am glad to say he finally got sober, long after I left and his problems didn't. I wish him the best.

We can't save people who won't save themselves. Alcoholism and other substance abuse does kill people, and nobody knows that better than alcoholics and substance abusers.

I read about a pilot project out west, a residence hotel for alcoholics who were still drinking, a place for them to live whether or not they intended to get sober. I would love to know if this is still going on. I do know that what's happening now, shame, ostracism, and complete isolation, is not working. It's just killing them sooner.

[Runcible Spoon]

11. those projects are vitally needed

unfortunately the ones who most need help to prevent succombing to a tragic end are the ones most unlikely to seek it for the reasons you mentioned: shame, feelings of hopelessness, worthlessness, giving up. Some alcoholics have been drinking so long it would be medically inadvisable for them to even quit without literally risking their lives, so places they can go without having to worry about being hounded about their addiction are vital.

[Junkdrawer]

17. Alcoholism is the worst kind of suicide. Long and more painful...

than anyone who hasn't been caught in the toils can know.

This year marks 20 years sober...I, very easily, could have ended up like Bob...

[Warpy]

19. Congratulations on those 20 years, one day at a time

5 minutes at a time in the beginning.

I'm glad you and my ex made it through. He'll have about 15 years sober now.

Part of my nursing education was to go to AA and Al Anon meetings. I was already doing the latter and had managed to stop taking my ex's drinking personally, but I still hadn't quite gotten it.

The AA meetings allowed me to get it. Oh, yeah.

[Fed_Up_Grammy]

27. Alcohol did it,not society. Maybe we should ban alcohol---again.

[Yael]

2. Wow

:(

[bonito]

3. Kick n/t

[AX10]

4. kick because all should read this.

[Orwellian_Ghost]

5. RIP "Bob"

K&R

[wellstone dem]

6. Bless you Mr. Pearce

and forgive us as you rest finally in peace.

[angrycarpenter]

8. What is amazing is that it made the papers

Poverty and homelessness is such a non-issue that they usually go as unnoticed in death as in life. That is unless some rich kid sets one on fire.

[quakerboy]

9. Thank you

for the reminder. Politics is only the sideffect of reality

[zalinda]

10. I want you to look at this from another viewpoint

I had a brother who was not yet 50 when he died. This guy was a charmer, he could sell you anything. He could look you straight in the eye and lie like a rug. He had talent besides his charm, he could take a car that was totaled and make it look brand new. But, he had problems, drugs and alcohol. He went through at least 3 marriages that we know of. We've lost track of how many kids he fathered, and I'm sure we never knew about all of them.

After he left his last wife, we lost track of him for a while. A few years before he died, he was in a bad car accident. He spent many months in the hospital, and of course, he dried out. Six months after he got out of the hospital, my sister ran into him panhandling on a city street. She asked how he was, and he told her about the accident, and how he is living on the street, sometimes staying with a friend. She wanted him to come back with her, (she and my father lived 50 miles away) and he told her no, he liked to drink and was he wasn't going back with her to a dry county (dry county, no booze sold). A year or so later they got word that he died. He died in his sleep of pneumonia, he refused go to the hospital because they would make him stop drinking.

This is a man who made a decision. Right or wrong, he decided that he liked what he had become. Maybe if he had lived longer, he would have come to his senses, but he didn't. He wasn't a sloppy, falling down drunk. He didn't even drink every day. He just liked the life of absolutely no responsibility. This was freedom to him. He was the guy with the sign at the freeway exit, reading homeless, please help.

The point is, some do it because that's who they are. Is it a mental disease, I don't know. They used to be called hobos or tramps, and we saw them as somehow nobel. Now, these same people are called homeless and we pity them. Maybe we should just call them what they are bums.

The truly homeless are proud people who ended up on the street not because they decided to do it, but because circumstances forced it on them. The last thing they would ever do is stand by the side of the road with a sign. I feel empathy for those who end up on the street or in shelters. I feel nothing for those bums who have made the decision to live the life they are living. It is a shame to put them all in the same category.

Does this sound harsh? Maybe yes. But, I've seen too many homeless people that can't get into shelters, because money is spent on the bums, trying to reform them. Yes, it's a shame that a guy dies alone in a building, and maybe he had a sickness, but when is enough, enough? How many times do you put this guy in jail, or in a shelter, or hospital or whatever, when he is going to go back out and live his life exactly how he wants to. I would much rather see that person fall by the wayside and help those who are really trying to put their lives back together.

Right now, in this reality, there is not enough money to save every one, so shouldn't we try to save the ones who are at least willing to meet us halfway?

zalinda


edited for spelling

[MadHound]

12. Sounds to me like your brother had some problems,

Having been homeless myself for a couple of years believe me, nobody wants to be homeless, much less a homeless alcoholic. Sure, you're brother may have not wanted to go home with you. It could very well be that he was embarrassed at what he had become. Perhaps he didn't want to burden his family with his problems or his life. Perhaps he was trying to hang onto one last scrap of self respect and dignity. These are all common motivating factors among the homeless. Like I said, I've been there and I had many of the same emotions myself. I also worked with the homeless for a number of years, and seen them in other members of the homeless community also. When you have little material goods to your name, the nonmaterial things like pride and dignity loom much larger in your life.

It sounds to me like your brother had some major problems before he hit the streets, possibly depression, possibly bi-polar, and perhaps he started self medicating. I don't know, but that is quite common among the homeless also. I've also seen life on the street drive many to drugs and alcohol, madness too.

And believe me, when you are homeless, you will do many, many things that you never thought you would do to stay alive and fed. At least standing by the off-ramp is honest. Hell, I was going out and shoplifting to make my keep for awhile. After all, what's the worst that can happen, you get stuck with three hots and a cot in the county jail for awhile:shrug:

I know your brother hurt you badly, I can read it in every line. But know that your brother was hurting himself much worse, and perhaps wanted in his own way to protect you from that. Don't be so quick to judge him, nor be so harsh on our brothers and sisters out on the street. Rather look back at the good times you had with your brother, remember him as the talented charmer you knew and loved, not the broken man on the street. Don't let anger cloud your memory, OK. Be at peace with him, and with yourself.

[Cleita]

14. People shouldn't have to die in the cold because they

are alcoholics. There was a time that alcoholics at least could rent a room in what were known as flops. They didn't have to be homeless even if they were marginal members of society. All that changed in the eighties with Reagan. We need to change who we are as people to look after the least of us. We need that minimum housing for people who can't quite march to the tune of someone elses drummer to at least be able to get a warm room and bed and something to eat.

[Warpy]

15. Exactly, which is why I asked about that pilot program

of a residence hotel for alcoholics who were still drinking.

Flops were usually a bunch of filthy mattresses on cots jammed into a single room, but it was better than being out in the cold. It was a lot better than being crammed 200 into an auditorium sized room in a current shelter. At least you generally knew who the room thief was in a flop and people who were habitually violent were banned. Gentrification is what killed all the old flophouses and turned them into yuppie warrens, mansions for Reagan's nouveau riche among investment bankers and arbitrage jockeys. It's also what killed all the rooming houses, old mansions that were turned into single rooms with sinks, shared bathroom down the hall, shared kitchen facilities in the basement. As many as 50 marginal workers would be evicted when such a place was bought by a couple of yuppies who wanted to turn it back into a mansion.

I saw all this happening in the 80s in Boston and it was sickening. The only homeless folks I'd seen in the previous decade were bums who hadn't managed to panhandle enough for a flop. Suddenly, the parks and cemeteries were full of people in sleeping bags, people who had jobs but no place to call home.

I can't believe how quickly this country has been destroyed from the top down. It is criminal, and it's not just the alcoholics at the very bottom who have suffered it. They just got hit first.

[mikeytherat]

16. Instead of "bums," maybe you should call them what they REALLY are:

Human beings.

:eyes:

mikey_the_rat

[Warpy]

26. When I first moved to Boston, a couple of those "human beings"

approached me and one of them launched into a sob story. The other guy saw I obviously wasn't buying a word of it, dug his elbow into the sobber's ribs and said, "Can it. Hey lady, we're BUMS and we need a bottle," delivered with a big grin.

He got every cent I had on me.

I'm hoping it got them a flop as well as enough cheap wine to get them through the night.

[mitchum]

13. Rest In Peace, William Pearce

alcoholism is a terrible and devastating disease

[wintersoulja]

18. national homelessness radio marathon 2-20-08

http://www.homelessnessmarathon.org/

last year this was broadcast from Fresno. This year Fresno will be broadcasting one hour of content from 10-11PM pacific standard. Definitely worth a listen.

[Fire Walk With Me]

20. A country must be judged by how it treats it's weak.

What are the two Democratic candidates doing about this problem?

[Wednesdays]

21. One lives in the White House in the lap of luxury and power

One dies in an abandoned building, alone.

Justice?... Anywhere?...

[Olney Blue]

22. Heartbreaking.

I've dealt with this disease in my family too. The addiction is overpowering and leads to death, if not treated.

[roody]

23. The sheriff of Mendocino County, California believes

that Ukiah needs more beer and wine to go outlets. He signed an excemption to sell alcohol 336 feet from a public grade school.

[Bluerthanblue]

24. he won't ever feel the cold again- it's small comfort but

comfort none the less.

There was a funeral yesterday afternoon for one of the 'guests' at our shelter. He was 52, and had a 10yr old son. His story was very similar to Mr. Pearce's. This has been a brutal winter here in NH- We need to find a better way to help each other.
This world can be so cold.


peace~

[hyphenate]

25. My brother in law

Died at the age of 43. He had a place to live, with my mom and brother, but he simply would not stop drinking or smoking, despite emphysema and other problems. And he would never apologize for it--he simply said he would simply do both until he died.

He never really harmed anyone with his drinking, but his father's cruelty and abuse had left him permanently scarred. Before he started losing brain cells to the alcohol, he was smart and could do almost any mechanical job there is. But the addictions killed him fairly early.

My sister is the same way. She makes no apologies for drinking, and doing drugs, though the last word I had was that she had cut her smoking habits nearly all the way.

Addiction is a serious problem. In my father's day, a couple of drinks a night was never considered an addiction--now, even that much drinking shows there is trouble someplace in the drinker's brain. The longer one does any substance abuse, the longer it is to shake it off--if they can.

And as with this gentleman in the article, it shows that there are far more quiet sufferers than there are those who are rude and crude on drinking. We just usually hear more about the ones who explode.

My dad could be a nasty drunk sometimes, but mostly, he was not. It loosened his inhibitions, and he was a "friendly" guy who would buy a round for everyone with him when he was drinking. Only I got the nasty drunk a couple of times, and my mom had to intervene. He wouldn't have pulled it on one of my brothers, because both of them would have pummeled him.

When it runs in the family, one always has to be careful to make sure that we don't put ourselves in a position where we're next on that one-way train.

[varkam]

28. It's so sad the prices that we have to pay for our own frailty, our own faults, our own addictions.

Thank you for posting this. It is a reminder of where I could of been and a reminder to be thankful that I am in recovery, and that I have a roof over my head.

K&R

[Orwellian_Ghost]

29. Kick n/t

[HCE SuiGeneris]

30. My heart breaks for this man...

and this country. :banghead:

[AlphaCentauri]

31. Why this has to happen in America?

Die in extreme poverty and homeless.

:blush: