David Webber, Columbia MISSOURIAN, September 17, 2022
Over the past couple of weeks two Columbia men, Anthony Willroth and a homeless man I’ll call Donnie, made me think about how we interact with homeless citizens.
On the City Council agenda recently, I noticed that Willroth, whom I did not know, was scheduled to speak about “My Experience Running a Business Immediately Adjacent to Wabash.” I was expecting another recitation of how disorderly and unsafe Wabash Station is, because of homeless folk hanging out there, and applauding the Downtown Community Improvement District’s call for revoking the use of the bus station as a warming center.
Instead, Willroth courageously explained that his business, The Basement Reef on North Tenth Street, is literally the closest business to Wabash Station and that he has neither felt unsafe nor seen an increase in homeless-related problems. He said that any problems are because the present configuration of bus routes brings all the buses through Wabash, so there is a flood of people every 45 minutes, which translates into an uptick in all sorts of human activity.
I stopped by his shop a few days after Willroth spoke at the council meeting to thank him for speaking up about his experience. Willroth told me he has long known homeless men and women, so he talks with them and treats them just like anyone else. Such a simple, basic notion. If only we would all learn to do that. Compassion and empathy are innate to most humans, but the skills and inclination to implement compassion have to be developed.
The second guy I thought a lot about this week is Donnie, who died Aug. 3, presumably outdoors. He was in his mid-40s but looked two decades older. Street life is hard life.
I don’t know any details surrounding his death, other than he is one of at least eight homeless men and women who have died so far in 2022 in Columbia.
I do remember several interactions with Donnie since about 2017, mostly from his visiting Loaves and Fishes and seeing him around town. He once told me he was a carpenter and handyman but couldn’t find work in Columbia.
I know he spent some time in prison and slept outdoors back then. He was a pleasant, semi-withdrawn man who evidently was in a lot of physical pain.
My most significant conversation with him was on a sunny Sunday afternoon in March 2020 right at the start of the pandemic. He was hobbling up Broadway, near Sixth Street, on crutches. I knew he had been suffering gangrene from frostbite, but I was shocked when he showed me his bandaged left foot minus his toes that had just been amputated. For some reason, my first reaction was to ask him if I could take a photo with my cellphone, perhaps because I knew that some Columbians would be surprised that real homeless people are losing toes and fingers to frostbite right here in our town.
He gave me permission, but I instantly felt it was an invasion of his privacy and said, “No, Donnie, I don’t need to do that,” and asked him several questions instead, like, “Will you be OK? Where will you go? How will you keep it clean?” He assured me that he would be all right. I gave him a couple bottles of water I had handy and, after a pleasant conversation, headed home, leaving him at Broadway and Sixth. I felt a combination of sick to my stomach and total powerlessness. Surely, I could do something.
The next day, I pushed out of my comfort zone and made him a bag lunch with turkey, Swiss cheese, tomato on whole wheat — just like I eat — with a cheese stick, granola bar, an apple or applesauce, with a bottle of water. I eventually worked up to about 10 sack lunches a day for the first month of the pandemic. Trust me, I’m not bragging, just admitting that it took me a while to look around and see that guys like Donnie were out there by themselves as the COVID-19 shutdown was coming.
I saw that there is no public water between Flat Branch, Stephens Lake and Douglass parks. I eventually noticed that there aren’t public restrooms either.
Donnie’s feet deteriorated from about 2017 until last year, when he had lost his left leg and right foot. The last time I talked with him was this past May when he was in his wheelchair, and I sat on the wall in front of the now-demolished bank building at Tenth and Broadway talking about what jobs he could still do. He told me his caseworker wanted him to do telephone work but that he couldn’t see that happening.
When Donnie’s death was reported by several local volunteers on social media this past week, a frequent response was that Donnie deserved better and how powerless the volunteer felt. I agree.
It certainly does seem that I, and we, could have, should have done more for Donnie and several other men like him. But I don’t know what we could have done. Donnie had opportunities for housing, which he did not take, perhaps because he didn’t want the responsibility, perhaps because he didn’t want to attend rehab, perhaps because he was too proud to accept help. That’s hard for many “normal” people to understand.
Better shelter from the cold, something the proposed Opportunity Center campus could have provided, would have protected him from the cold and thus most likely prevented frostbite of his feet. But, simply, more shelter is unlikely to have changed his life to one of independence and self-sufficiency.
An unmet need of men and women like Donnie is to be engaged in something. Yes, they need shelter and food to survive, but people don’t live by bread alone.
David Webber joined the MU Political Science Department in 1986 and wrote his first column for the Missourian in 1994.
Webber Rough and Polished 