Homeless Come Home

Benedict F. Giamo

Description

Benedict Giamo has published widely on the condition of historical and contemporary homelessness in America. In Homeless Come Home: An Advocate, the Riverbank, and Murder in Topeka, Kansas, Giamo offers a deeply sympathetic yet critical look at the life of homeless advocate David Owen, who was tortured and killed in 2006 by some of those he intended to help. Part chronicle, part social analysis, part investigative journalism, and part true-crime book, Homeless Come Home examines why and how David Owen contributed to his own gruesome death.

David Owen defined his single-minded mission of tough Christian love, which he called “Homeless Come Home,” in terms of his belief that all homeless persons could and should be reunited with their family. He demanded that the homeless reenter society via telephone cards, cell phones, and their families front doors. Owen, who himself was disabled and had a history of legal and mental problems, would not take no for an answer. Many with whom he came in contact—pastors, social workers, legislators, police—feared that his fanatical dedication and aggressive approach ultimately would be his downfall. After police discovered his corpse on the bank of the Kansas River, four homeless persons who had been living in a nearby tent camp were charged with his kidnapping and felony murder.

Giamo explores Owen’s actions and motives, the homeless community in Topeka, the social services available to them, and the separate trials of the co-defendants charged in his death. In doing so, he conveys the contention between social order and disorder and raises broader concerns regarding inequality, advocacy, and justice. The story is both fascinating and cautionary, a modern tragedy in which no one person can be identified as its cause.

Sujets

• Writting
• Disciplines
• Language Arts
• General officer
• Topeka, Kansas
• Writing
• Nonfiction
• Murder
• General
• Christian
• Topeka
• Kansas

Informations

• Publié par: University of Notre Dame Press
• Date de parution: 15 septembre 2011
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780268080655
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 3 Mo

Extrait

“ This book is a serious penetration into the lower depths of the lost society that
exists next door to many of us—the hellish villages where the homeless live.
Benedict Giamo takes us into their abysmal center through the story of one
maniacally determined advocate who tried to rescue the homeless—all of them—
and was murdered by them. This tale has the fascination of the abomination.”
—W i l l i a m K e n n e dy , author of ironweed
“ Benedict Giamo has written a beautiful, tender, piercingly honest story of
homelessness in america, of what it means to be hidden away in america’s
social underbrush. empathic and riveting, Giamo’s Homeless Come Home will
make you sit up and listen.”
—a l e x Ko T l o W i T z , author of There are n o Children Here
“ This thorough, rigorously sympathetic account of a terrible crime and its many
resonances does narrative and analytical justice to the tortured complexity of
david owen, an unreasonable, inspired, polarizing man who wanted to bring
the homeless home—whether they wanted to come or not. Giamo’s evenhanded
investigation into ‘a clash between a type of homelessness lived in extremis and
a brand of advocacy that went to the end of the line’ follows the tangled stories
of its diffcult characters to their common root, the profound tension between
individual and community at the heart of american life.”
—C a r l o r o T e l l a , Boston College
“ Using his own extensive research and court transcripts, Benedict Giamo
generates a documentary of the murder of david owen that is novelistic in
sweep. With the insight of a superior writer he starts with the raw fact of a crime
and then artfully adds layers of factual complexity. The result is both
impressive and deeply satisfying.”
—d o na l d W. Fa U l K n e r , new york State Writers institute
Benedict Giamo is associate professor of american Studies at the
University of notre dame. He is the author and coauthor of a number of books,
including on the Bowery: confronting Homelessness in american Society and
Beyond Homelessness: Frames of Reference.
university of notre Dame Press
notre Dame, indiana 46556
undpress.nd.edu
Cover Design: Fa Ceout s tu Dio, J e FF Mi LLer | Cover Photo by bene Di Ct gia MoHomeless Come Home HOMELESS
COME HOME
An Advocate, the Riverbank,
and Murder in Topeka, Kansas
Benedict Giamo
University of Notre Dame Press Notre Dame, IndianaCopyright © 2011 by University of Notre Dame
Notre Dame, Indiana 46556
www.undpress.nd.edu
All Rights Reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Giamo, Benedict.
Homeless come home : an advocate, the riverbank, and
murder in Topeka, Kansas / Benedict Giamo.
p. cm.
ISBN-13: 978-0-268-02981-4 (pbk. : alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 0-268-02981-4 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Owen, David, 2006. 2. Homelessness—Kansas—Topeka.
3. Homeless persons—Kansas—Topeka. 4. Murder—Kansas—Topeka.
I. Title.
HV4506.T67G53 2011
364.152'3092—dc23
2011025675In memory of my parents, Marie and Nathan Giamo,
and for my sisters, Linza Douglas and Karen KirkAd Astra per AsperaContents
Preface ixAcknowledgments xiii
ONE“Sins of the Cold-Blooded” 1
Interval: Open Forum, June 2006 15
TWOThe Green Curtain and the Blue Cross 19
Interval: On the Web 37
THREE A Vision of Home 41
FOUR “I Shall Not Be Moved” 57
Interval: Open Forum, February 2006 71
FIVE “Sins of the Warm-Hearted” 73
Interval: Senate Resolution No. 1808 87
SIX The Shadow of the Dome 91
SEVEN Trials and Tribulations: State’s Witness 109
Interval: “It Got So Out of Hand” 119
EIGHT Trials and Tribulations: Three Co-Defendants 121
NINE Through a Prism 145
Afterword 157Appendix163Preface
On June 24, 2006, David Owen, a 38-year-old advocate for the
homeless and registered lobbyist in Topeka, Kansas, was reported missing.
On July 2, police discovered his corpse on the bank of the Kansas
River. Four homeless persons who had been living in a camp near the
river were charged with kidnapping and felony murder. One of the
codefendants turned State’s witness; the other three cases went to trial.
The victim had been killed by those he intended to help. Who was
this advocate, and why did his life end in such a horrible way? I had
never met David Owen, but he lived intensely in my mind and
imagination for two years. He was reconstructed for me by means of
conducting in-depth interviews with civic leaders, examining documents
and videos, observing judicial proceedings, combing through the crime
scene, following his traces in Topeka, poring over the journal that
survives him, visiting his hometown, and being awakened by nightmares
of his plight.
I was both sickened by the horrifc crime and intrigued by its
tragic irony. I began by jotting down names of possible contacts in
T opeka, looked up several limited accounts of the incident on the
Internet, read the Topeka Capital-Journal articles on the case, came across
Justin Kendall’s two profles of David Owen in The Pitch, and made
some telephone calls to the police station, courthouse, public
defender’s offces, City Council, and Statehouse. At the time, all I could get
out of the police spokesperson was that the homeless co-defendants
were being charged with frst-degree murder, and that David was not
stabbed, shot, or bludgeoned to death. It was enough to propel me to
Topeka.
In all, I made eight trips to Topeka and one to towns in
southwestern and central Kansas. Most lasted a week; a couple of visits
ixstretched over the weekend and into the following week. This gave me
the time to conduct extensive interviews with people who had known
and worked with David Owen: yes, friends, associates, and colleagues,
but also community activists, City Council members, legislators,
police offcers, homeless persons, directors of homeless task forces and
programs, mission and social service agency staff members, pastors,
reporters, and family members. And, to cover the case more broadly, I
also met and talked with public defenders, judges, the State’s witness,
the deputy district attorney, courthouse staff, and the head of the
National Coalition for the Homeless. The book that resulted from this
investigation examines the crime, trials, and repercussions for the
individuals involved as well as for the community at large. This specifc
case refects the clash between a type of homelessness lived in extremis
and a brand of advocacy that went to the end of the line. Throughout,
my main focus is on the victim’s life and crusade to rescue the
homeless, and I attempt to explain why and how he contributed to his own
gruesome death.
No doubt, the riverbank homeless in Topeka present a challenge
to any effort aimed at rescue and rehabilitation. They are out there,
and they are not coming in—not voluntarily, at least. They see
themselves as survivors disengaged from society, and they fend for
themselves the best they can. On the whole, they are resourceful and
nonconformist in the strictest sense (for a host of reasons, they have very
little vested interest in the notions of order, stability, employment,
success, property, and ownership). In this respect, they are “lawless”;
that is, they embody the principle—and conditions—of social
disorder. As outcasts, they dislodge the very bricks and mortar of the
American Dream. In doing so, whether wittingly or unwittingly, they
are viewed as the fagging dissidents of good order, the detritus of the
social hierarchy.
Enter David Owen, advocate and lobbyist, armed with cell phones
and telephone cards. His advocacy was known as “Homeless Come
Home,” and he was passionate about reconnecting these people with
their families, often pursuing his goal with an aggressive fervor. From
David’s perspective, the homeless were violating a social taboo. They
were out of place in the scheme of things. If disconnection is the
problem, then reconciling the lost and displaced with their families of
x Preface origin might very well be the solution: restore home as the foundation
of social order. At the level of myth, David sought to turn division
into unity, discord into harmony, and ambiguity into certainty. His
vision was E denic, and he made the ultimate sacrifce on its behalf.
David’s own concept of home began in the small farming town of
Cimarron, Kansas, where he lived and struggled with cerebral palsy.
One of his defning traits—persistence—emerged from this disability;
it was his greatest attribute as well as his tragic faw. He was
determined to prevail over formidable personal and social obstacles. David
never took “no” for an answer, and he didn’t know when to call it quits
and simply walk away. Nothing could break his stride. Never
discriminating, he annoyed anyone who crossed his path—rich or poor,
friend or foe, housed or homeless. Community organizers and
riverbank campers alike spoke of David’s hostile demands, stubborn
insistence, and unresolved conficts, yet each story also illuminated his
dogged commitment to a mission he regarded as a noble expression of
tough Christian love.
His crusade landed him in the middle of a rancorous collision
betwe