My Name is Richard. And I’m Homeless. Part IX

I’m sorry to report that our friend Richard Locicero is doing quite poorly.

For those of you who are new to the story, Richard is a good pal of ours at WLA and a former college teacher who, for one reason and another—much of it having to do with ill health—is homeless.

(For earlier posts about Richard, go here.)

Now Richard is back in the hospital again, suffering from conjestive heart failure. It is the condition that lands him in the hospital every month or so. This time he has some sort of infection in addition, which he said is spreading. “Cellulitis,” he said when I asked the nature of the infection. “It’s affecting my lymph system.”

He was vulnerable to the infection because of poor circulation. And the poor circulation is caused by the CHF.

Richard apologized over and over for calling me and complaining, but I’ve made him promise to phone me when he’s sick or ends up in he hospital.

For months it has been clear that the CHF has been getting worse. Richard really needs to be on oxygen most of the time, but it’s almost impossible to drag an oxygen tank or the like around when you don’t have a stable residence. So he makes do on poorly oxygenated blood as long as he can, until he sort of crashes.

And then it’s back to the hospital.

To complicate things, the lack of oxygen makes him sleepy. Sometimes when he’s on a bus bench resting before he tries to make it to his next destination he drops off without realizing it and doesn’t wake up for an hour.

In his compromised physical state Richard cannot walk too far without sitting down again. Even with frequent pauses to rest, anything that isn’t close to a bus stop is simple no longer accessable. Because of the increasing physical limitations, although he’s very bright, well-educated, and skilled, he isn’t really terribly employable. His favorite way to pass the time is to take a bus to the nearest library where he can read in comparitive safety and comfort (Richard is better read than most people I know). In the library he can also go on line, of course, and read the news of the day. When he has the energy, he posts articulate (and often happily snarky) comments here, at Marc Cooper’s blog and at Beautiful Horizons.

But, of late, the requisite energy and the comments have been less and less frequent.

Late Friday night Richard was in the midst of one of his inadvertent doze-offs, this time on a bus bench located on a busy street near Disneyland, when a man calmly walked up and robbed him of everything he had, most of which was stashed in the rolling bag Richard brings with him everywhere. “The guy just walked off with my change of clothes, my medicines,
This means he has $2 to make it to the end of the month.

“I just let him take it,” he said. “I couldn’t stop him. I’m just so tired. So sick of it all. Because of the breathing problem, and the falling asleep, I’m an easy target.”

“That’s also why I haven’t been writing,” he said. “I’m too tired to get to a computer. I’m in really bad shape.”

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I’m going to call later today to find out if I can get him into a community for the homeless located on Skid Row in downtown Los Angeles.

I’ll let you know how it goes.