Drew T

This interview again highlights the importance of the family as a stabilizing influence and as a launching pad for many of the values that we will use throughout life.

I met Drew on a sunny December Day in 2007. It was an hour or so after I interviewed Julia, so I was still a little spent emotionally. He was on a corner holding a sign asking for donations. I happened to have $5 in my pocket so I told him I'd give it to him if he'd spend 10 minutes with me talking about his life honestly. He agreed. He is a handsome young man, tall and with a dark complection. He did not look like an addict. As is the case with many people I interview, I had mixed feelings as I was interviewing him. Was he proud of his way of life? Would he do it over again? Is he doing this for attention? And, as is usually the case, the answers came towards the end as he naturally opened up in a couple instances, answering not only these questions but reinforcing my conclusion that these young people are getting trapped while they are very young and can spend their lifetimes looking for a foothold to freedom.

We sat inthe sunlight against a marble storefront at the feet of hundreds of Christmas shoppers and had this conversation. It is, as always, transcribed verbatim.

What’s your name?
Drew.

And your last initial, Drew?
T.

And how long have you been on the streets?
Since I was 13, so about 11 years now.

And what got you on the streets in the first place?

Um, my mom passed away and I got into drugs. Um, I started traveling; you know I just never got myself together after I dropped out of school.

Your mom died, and then what happened immediately after that?
Uh, they threw me into a foster home and from there I didn’t do very well. I just took off and started going from city to city.

Where was this at?
It started out in New York where my mom passed away and Ohio was the foster care family I was with. And from there I went to Georgia and San Francisco, all over the place.

Why did you go to Ohio? Did you have family there or something like that?
Well, I got into legal trouble in New York so they put me in a foster care system in Ohio.

What kind of legal trouble did you get into in New York? Was that drugs?
Yeah, just drugs, fightin’ and stuff like that, yeah. Problems at school.

And what education do you have right now?
I have my GED.

And how long have you been in Portland?
Uh, this time about 10 months.

And you like it here?
Yeah I do.

What’s good about Portland that’s not good about other cities?
There’s a lot of friendly people, the weather for he most part is mild, for the most part it doesn’t get extremely cold or extremely hot, there’s a lot of services here for homeless people, just a nice area.

OK.
Very hip town…


Yeah it is that, isn’t it? Tell me a little more about your family. You mentioned your mom passed away - what else do you know? Do you have brothers or sisters, uncles...?
I have adopted brothers and sisters. I was adopted so…

When were you adopted, Drew?
When I was in that foster care family they adopted me.

At this point we are approached by a scantily-dressed, tough-looking young lady who eyes me suspiciously. She looks at Drew intensely, nods to me as if to say, “Who’s this?” Drew replies, “That’s my friend. Just a few minutes.” This seems to satisfy her and she goes around the corner out of view.

Drew continuing: Yeah, so I was adopted and from there I just ran around and then I get sent back to them when ever I got caught again. My real dad lives in Michigan, but we don’t get along that well. We do talk sometimes, but…we’ve never really known each other.

And what’s he do?
He’s a truck driver.

Do you ever see him?
Um…occasionally I see him maybe once or twice a year, something like that. His girlfriend doesn’t like me too much.

I’ve heard that before.
Yeah…

Do you like being on the street?
I get tired of it…I get like…it’s getting old, you know.

What is it that gets old to you – what’s the worst thing about it?
I have a heroin drug habit. So…half of me…sometimes…people don’t think this...people think that drug addicts are lazy, but heroin’s a full-time job. You gotta get up in the morning to get your tricks or you’re gonna be hurtin’. You gotta get out there and get your money or you’re not gonna make it, you know what I mean? It is a hard lifestyle, and I’m tired of it.

I’m sure.
It was all glamour when I got into it, you know? Havin’ a good time, partying, and it just gets old after a while.

Is this something you’re going to do? Are you going to get off this eventually?
Yeah, I’m actually working on getting in a methadone clinic – it’s $60 to get in. So…once I can make that along with what I need for the day…you know…

So you need a daily fix and then you can go to the methadone clinic.
Once I get on methadone I won’t need that daily fix.

I’ve interviewed a lot of kids on heroin –
A lot of street kids are on heroin.

Yeah, it’s a rough life, it really is.
Yeah.

So where do you see yourself in five years?
Hopefully in college. That’s what I want…I want to go to school to be a journalist. Do what you’re doin’… (chuckles)

So tell me about this foster family. Why couldn’t they send you $60?
They cut me off when they found out I was using drugs.

What kind of people are they?
They live in a small town in Ohio, in Amish country, so they’re very conservative people, you know.

Are mom and dad both home and that kind of stuff?
Yeah, my step dad is a sign painter and my adopted mother; she works as a nurse’s assistant. I have three sisters and one brother. The sisters are between the ages of nineteen and thirteen and, um, my brother is like twenty-six.

And have you been in contact with any of those guys?
Yeah, I’ve been writin’ ‘em. They’re good people.

They’re friendly to you and all?
Yeah, we get along better in the past year or so than we ever have before. They’ve always been good to me but you know, the situation where we got to know each other was not a good one on my part so I just never got along with them until recently.

So how’d your mother pass away?
She OD’d on heroin. Seems like it’s a generational curse.

Drew, one more question. If you could say one thing to a thirteen year old kid, what would it be?
(Long pause). A thirteen year old kid in my situation, facing something like (the death of a parent)…

Sure, let’s do that.
Ask for all the help that you can get. And no matter what it feels like at this time in your life, in the long run if you’ll listen to what the older folks say, you’ll be a lot better off.

Alright.
That’s my best advice. When you’re thirteen years old you don’t know everything. You almost got that teenager attitude where you don’t what to listen to anything. Especially in my situation because I was forced into going from Brooklyn to a small town in Ohio where people are conservative and I was raised in a liberal household and I didn’t want to hear anything those people had to say. And now I wish I would have listened to some of it.

Why did you run? Were you mad at someone…?
I was mad at the world, really.

Because of what happened and stuff, right?
Yeah, I grew up…my mom followed the Grateful Dead when I was growing up and when Jerry Garcia quit touring, passed away, we moved to Brooklyn and it just went down hill after that.

Drew, thanks so much.
Yeah, no problem.

By the way, you are better than this. You can do better – I know you can.
Yeah, I know. I’m going to.

Be patient...

I've received a few requests for the next installment, and it is late I admit. Thank you for keeping on me about it! Anyway, the interview I referred to last time has been postponed, but I have another interview I think you will also find interesting and compelling that I will try to post by the end of the week. I hope to have the interview with my friend who "made it out" completed and transcribed soon.

Thanks again for your encouragement and kind words. And please don't forget to send the link to your friends. I have a strong feeling that the more this little blog gets out the better chance we'll have of setting up a system that will allow us to get those brave souls that want a change off the streets. That's the whole reason for this blog.

We'll talk soon!

Eric

Update: Cool things to come!

Hey there, folks! It’s been an exciting last few weeks as I have had a lot of cool feedback from readers in person and a few online. I have another video I’d like to share with you, a way for you to actually subscribe to this blog so you get automatic updates when I add new interviews or entries (check out the box to the left of the heading) and a very cool development as well.

Regarding the cool development, I have been fortunate enough to get to know a person in Bend that has had a phenomenal life. She was born into difficult circumstances and from there things got worse. She and her siblings were adopted by a family that seemed nice on the outside but the father was sexually abusive. Now if this sounds like some of the interviews you’ve read on this blog, you’re right. However, the very cool part of this is that this woman is by all accounts very successful with a great family life. I am proud to call her and her husband my friends and I look up to and admire them in many ways. Even better is that she is also aware of my blog and has agreed to allow me to interview her about her childhood anonymously. What I’d like from you are questions you’d like me to ask. Please forward these to me via the “comments” section at the bottom of this blog entry so others can see what you are interested in. This will jog your thoughts (unless you’re the first to respond, I guess) and allow others to get ideas as well. I am excited to interview her because although we know that so many are out there that need our love and understanding, it is nice on occasion to find someone to give us hope and to see what worked in her life so we can one day apply her successes to someone with a similar background. I’d like to be ready to interview her by February 2. I expect the interview to be longer than normal, but will work to get it published by the 14th. I’m so stoked to get your questions and comments and see what and who made the difference for her!

Thing #2: Some of you have asked how you can help. Well, until I have some of my regular “day-time job” stuff figured out, I think there’s not too much, except for the input above, to subscribe and spread the word to increase readership of this blog. But let me tell you where I would like this to go someday and maybe I can get your ideas here as well. I want to go to a city, any city, various cities, and continue to interview and publish interviews. You know, whenever I go to interview I pray for the same things: I pray to find someone with a compelling story, someone I can help or give hope to and I pray to be safe. Well, so far so good every time. I want to keep doing the interviews, but it's so hard to talk to these people and then leave them with only a good word of encouragement. Watching Julia go back to the very people that feed her illness about ripped my guts out. So I’d like to have a system set up where I can help someone meaningfully if I ascertain they are ready. Let’s say I find someone who is really, really ready to get off heroin, but they lack the money for methadone treatment, a safe place to be and they’re surrounded by evil friends. Wouldn’t it be cool to be able to buy them a bus ticket to, say, Portland (if they’re not from there) where I would meet them? I would personally escort them to a methadone clinic and make sure they get on that program. Then I’d get them enrolled at maybe an “Oxford House” (see http://www.oxfordhouse.org/) or some other safe place. After that, I / we’d get them to treatment every day. I / we would make sure they got enrolled in a trade school or community college and just help them back on their feet. In return, they would have to submit to drug tests regularly and meet certain benchmarks that show that they are committed to progressing and that they are not wasting resources that might be better spent on someone more committed. The screening process would be key, but my good friends at Mammas Hands (http://www.mammashands.com/) have that pretty wired already and they’ve given me all the forms necessary to go. We could start with one person and expand as quickly as I / we could. Actually, I already have the “nonprofit” organization papers filled out and ready to submit. It’s just a matter of coming up with the $850 to make it happen, which I will do ASAP. Anyway, that’s my dream and I think it’s not impossible to start as soon as I get a few things figured out. What do you think?

Finally, here’s the link to a great and very applicable song that each and every homeless young person needs to hear and know.

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&VideoID=8187291

Just copy and paste the address above into the address bar of your browser, hit "enter" and it should go.

I hope we can spread the message of this song to these young people. We can do this by a smile, a blanket, a cup of soup or getting them away from danger as I have described.

Thank you so much for your kind thoughts, prayers and words.

Please subscribe to this blog and send a link to 4 or 5 of your close friends! I am a firm believer in momentum and in the power of many people with a passion for a change. We can all make a difference on a very personal level to some people who need it very badly!

Eric
youthstories@gmail.com
541-948-7445 cell