Joe

Joe grew up in Menlo Park and Palo Alto, and ended up at COTS after years of alcoholism had robbed him of the ability to keep a roof over his head.  In 2000 he thought he had a heart attack and was frightened enough by the experience to stop drinking.  A year or so later, during the course of one of a handful of medical exams he’d ever had his life, Joe found out he had never had a heart attack after all.  Unfortunately, Joe took this good news as a free pass to start drinking again.  He lived under bushes and bridges in Petaluma.

 

When he was diagnosed with lung cancer, Joe took the last drink of his life and came to COTS’ Opportunity Center for help.  He needed surgery, but doctors wouldn’t go ahead with the procedure until Joe had a place to live.  Surgery was delayed because it took a while for him to get a space at a local nursing home.  With additional resources, COTS might have been able to get Joe into housing sooner and provide more comfort at the end of his life.

 

Joe died a short time later at the age of 52 from complications of lung cancer.  One of COTS’ staff members wrote a poem about Joe, which included these closing lines …

 

I was afraid they’d find your body somewhere in a field or hidden under a bush,

where you might have laid down to sleep.

…

I am glad you didn’t die on the street,

That you slept in a warm clean bed for the last four days of your life.