This is a wonderful story about a very generous person doing what he can to help those who need help, but it also points out the role personal choice plays in the situation of so many of the homeless as the woman profiled, who very sadly died in her tent during a cold snap, seemed to have a place to go if she had wanted, but appeared to choose the streets instead.
At some point, those organized advocates who have the resources and can call on police back-up and who do care about these poor folks, really need to be a little more aggressive in helping them when they can’t help themselves.
Sundays with Pat
A deadly winter isn't over, but many of Sacramento's homeless have hope and small comforts thanks to Patrick Toves
By Cynthia Hubert - chubert@sacbee.com
Published 12:00 am PST Friday, February 15, 2008
Patrick Toves thought a lot about his friends that night.
Winds were ripping limbs from trees and rain was gushing through the streets.
Alise is out there, Toves remembers worrying as he finished his machinist shift for the Union Pacific Railroad. So are Dee and Steve and Thomas and Walter and Evelyn, in their flimsy tents along the river.
He said a silent prayer for them. But it was not enough to save Evelyn Roper.
Roper, one of hundreds of homeless people Toves has helped over the past 12 years, died inside her tent that January night as the storm raged around her. She was 66, a mother and grandmother who months earlier had been forced from the home where she had lived for three decades.
It was Toves who wrote her obituary and raised $145 to have it printed in the newspaper. He planned her memorial service and delivered her eulogy at the same park where he had served her meals on Sundays.
Thousands of homeless people live on Sacramento's streets and along its rivers, and 2008 is shaping up to be a difficult year for them. In January, at least seven homeless men and women succumbed to violence, accidents or the cold, damp weather.
Roper's death was a personal loss for Toves…
…Evelyn Roper began coming to the Sunday picnics last summer, shortly after the county Department of Health and Human Services ordered her to leave a house owned by her mother.
Roper was a certified nurse's assistant who lived at the house on 34th Avenue with her mother, Anna Rivera, for 30 years, according to her sons. Thomas and Walter Roper, who acknowledge drug and alcohol struggles, say they lived off and on at the home as well. In May, after Rivera moved into a nursing home, the county took the property to help cover the costs of her care.
A letter from the Health and Human Services Department dated May 7 ordered Evelyn Roper and anyone else living on the property to leave within 60 days, without citing a reason. Officials say they cannot discuss the case, citing privacy issues.
Rather than move into a shelter or in with her daughter, Phyllis, who lives in a small apartment, Roper took her chances on the streets with her sons and her dogs, Ginger and Indo.
