"Why Is He Homeless?"

My mother was indeed a beauty.  My favorite picture of her in one taken in college that was printed in the yearbook.  She was grouped with her Delta Zeta sorority sisters and she was wearing a tiara.  She was grinning from ear to ear and obviously excited over the attention she was receiving.  An all-American girl, my mother, beautiful and smart, had the world at her feet and her future appeared bright.

I only know rumors of what happened next.  But personal tragedy led her to start drinking.

She later met and married my dad.  Over the next few years she had three miscarriages. My parents decided adoption was the best option and chose my older brother and I to complete their family.  But the pain must have been overwhelming and as addiction settled in and took hold, she could not resist alcohol any more than a cancer patient can resist the growth of killer cells.

My parents divorced, my mother left and moved to Florida to live near my grandparents while my dad filled the role of single parent.  For the next 30 years or so, my mother marinated her pain in Vodka and failed relationships.  She cared for my grandmother and my grandfather in their old age.  My mother, still loved by her father, was left a mobile home and an allowance, just enough to support her basic needs. Living with her older brother, my mother lived out her final years full of shame and hate.  She wanted no one around her and refused any comfort by those who loved her.  She died, alone, sitting on a couch, coughing up blood.  Her death certificate confirms that she literally drank herself to death.  But she died with a roof over her head.

Eddie has family too.  He has an aunt in OKC, he has nephews and nieces.   I have no idea what tragedy led him to the place he is now but, like my mother, he has an taste for vodka.  Being sober is too painful and is avoided as much as possible.  Eddie lives on the street.  He is not poor.  Eddie is destitute.  He has nothing.  Not a shopping cart, not a cardboard sign, nothing.  If you give him money he will buy coffee and vodka.  He is dirty.  He smells of mouthwash and shit.   He is freezing cold almost all the time. 

Eddie and my mom have so much in common. Pain, addiction, neither held a job, both have hurt those around them... but to answer this question that was posed to me earlier this week:

Eddie is not homeless because he is an alcoholic (although no doubt he is).  Eddie is not homeless because he is mentally ill (but he probably is).

Eddie is homeless because he is not loved.