From homelessness and addiction to hope and a future
He was in prison at the age of 16, where he dabbled in heroin while still managing to get qualifications to attend university in the US.
There, his addiction grew and Dan (not his real name) came back to Bermuda as a heroin addict.
“It wasn’t as serious in the beginning but eventually it progressed to become a nightmare,” Dan said of his addiction.
“I think the addiction broke my mother’s heart. When she passed away, I felt a lot of unworthiness, a lot of guilt, a lot of resentment, a lot of regret.”
He was in Atlanta when his mother died. He came back to Bermuda but had nowhere to stay — his brothers did not want a drug addict in their home. For a while he had his own place but the addiction ate up his money and he was homeless.
“You’ve got to realise that as a heroin addict, you’re not worrying about a place to stay. You’re just worried about your next hit.”
There followed another stint in prison and when he came out — at the age of 26 — he was finally clean but was again homeless and living in a park to avoid the stares of passers-by.
“The only reason I would hang in parks is because I didn’t want people to see me out and about in the streets and stuff like that.
“One thing that helped me to get through that particular time was the fact that I always read. So I always had a book.
“At the same time, I had to figure out, OK, now I need to get myself together. I needed to get a job.”
The Royal Gazette in conjunction with stakeholders including Home has launched its Ending Homelessness campaign to remind the community that the homeless matter.
Home, and others, want to end homelessness. So do we. We want your support. We want you to change your perception of the homeless. We want you to help lobby for simple changes. We want you to show compassion.
Homeless people want to work so that they may be self-sufficient. They did not choose to be homeless, and in many cases their plight was brought about by systemic failings in this country.
Home has produced a report, Plan to End Homelessness, which is out for consultation and points to issues and solutions to the homelessness problem in Bermuda. It can be seen in Related Media.
He did. He landed a job in wholesale, earning enough to rent a room, then a job in sales, where he was named as employee of the year, and then on to the airport.
“People said ‘this guy has a lot of potential’, he can do this, he can do that’, but that gift came from being on the streets, learning how to hustle, learning how to survive. I turned that negative aspect into a positive.”
Then Covid struck, and he found himself without a job and then a place to live. To cope, to help the day pass more quickly, he turned to drink.
“Drinking was a way to deal with it. But when you look at it, you drink and the money is gone, and you're looking like sh**. You’re not grooming yourself, you’re not taking care of yourself. It’s a vicious cycle because you can’t get a job again.”
Remarkably, he again turned his life around, getting a job doing the laundry at a hotel, and although he works every other week at the moment, he has enough money to afford a place to live.
In 2010, the Bermuda Census identified 82 people experiencing homelessness. By 2016, that number had risen to 138.
According to Home, the Department of Statistics developed those estimates based on counting rough sleepers and the population housed in the Salvation Army emergency shelter.
As of December 31, 2022, Home had recorded more than 650 people experiencing homelessness.
Now, aged 54, Dan acknowledges that he made a lot of bad choices.
“With negative choices you have negative outcomes.
“I can’t sit back and play the victim game any more, or blame my mom’s death. Sometimes I sit back and I say to myself, ‘you know, had you applied yourself, you could have had your degree’.
“I’m going to counselling and finding out that a lot of the healing process has to start with me. You know, I have to be honest with myself. I have to say to myself, ‘well, you know, you’re in the situation because of your choices. Nobody put you in this situation but you, you know’?”
He added: “I would say all of it was my fault. I had nobody to blame but me, you know, nobody put me in that situation but me, you know?
“I think a lot comes from when my mother passed away, me punishing myself for the disappointment that I caused her and my family, the embarrassment that I caused her and my family. You know, that’s a lot to deal with, especially in Bermuda because it’s a small, small place.
“I remember times when my mom would be at her job and people would say to her, ‘your son should be finishing school by now’, but she didn’t know what to say.
“I found I had to go through a lot of soul searching, a lot of identifying with what triggers me. Who am I? What is it that I want? Where do I want to be in another five years? How can I use my experiences and learn from it?”
When he was at university, Dan said he was fascinated with trading and took some courses to learn more about it while still working in the hotel laundry.
“For the longest time I had a lot of regrets,” he said when asked how he looked back on his life.
“But then I felt like, you know what, don’t look back, look forward. Keep moving. Because if you look back, you can go back.”
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