Profiles

We see them on the street each day. Whether we pity them or judge them, seldom do we stop to ask or even wonder about the experiences of Harvard Square's homeless.

Reporter Jonathan F. Taylor interviewed several of the Square's homeless, offering to buy them lunch. Here are their stories.

The Peaceful Life

In the quiet Boston suburb of Walden, Mass., once the site of Thoreau's introspection about the power of nature and the essence of humanity, Natalie M. Heffellinger was raised.

The Peaceful Life

Today Heffellinger spends her days in and around Harvard Square, sleeping under roofs and park benches, relying on food from charity.

Years of being on the streets have taken their toll on Heffellinger. She is not sure how long she's been homeless, but guesses it's been roughly 10 years.

She admits to not being able to read very well, surmising that this has contributed to her difficulties.

"I can't lay this on anyone but myself," she says. "I just can't get things going."

Heffellinger's environment of choice is no Walden, with tourists, shoppers and students hustling busily through her residence.

But like Thoreau, Heffellinger says she does not want to be around crowds and sometimes becomes upset by having too many people around her.

"I don't like to be around people--I like to be withdrawn, on my own," she says. "I'm afraid to get close to people because of what happened in my life."

Though declining to elaborate, Heffellinger describes her relationship with her family growing up as strained. She cites this as one of the underlying reasons for her homelessness.

"I can't find trust anywhere, even from my own family. That's my basic problem," she explains.

This problem is evidenced by the fact that Heffellinger refuses the offer of lunch.

"I have nowhere to go, I have no close friends," she says. "I wish I were close to my family."

"I wish them well," she adds.

She says she places no blame on society or other individuals for being homeless.

"They have their lifestyle and I have mine," she says. "I'm not happy with it, but I can't seem to get up."

Despite her allusions to childhood trauma and family problems, Heffellinger says she is free from alcohol and drugs.

"I wish to get well, and smoking and drinking is not the way to that," she says. "I reach out to the spirit world all the time, even though I'm not practicing religion in any formal way."

In keeping with her ideas of spirituality, she occasionally visits Walden to enjoy the tranquility of the place where Thoreau found enlightenment.

Heffellinger wistfully describes its appeal to her: "The pond is the only place where I like to stay out late and sleep outside."

The Longhair

Brian F. Joyce has been roaming the major cities of the United States since 1978, living off the streets in places like New York, Boston, Los Angeles and Seattle.

Joyce describes himself as a "longhair," the type of homeless person who is highly mobile, lives out of a backpack and is distinguishable by his long, unkempt hair and beard.

A 48-year-old Needham native, Joyce prides himself on being a survivor, adapting easily to circumstance.

Still, he says, he would like to change his situation if possible.

Standing bewildered in front of the order counter at Au Bon Pain, Joyce apologizes sheepishly for taking so long to order. He feels a bit lost, he explains, at actually having a menu to choose from.

Though Joyce has passed the restaurant "literally thousands" of times, he says, he has never once been inside.

After deciding on a roast beef sandwich, he relays his story, beginning with a move to New Mexico in 1974. He was trying to get established as a painter but, in the spring of 1978, became involved in a "controversy" about which he declines to give details.

So Joyce has been transient and homeless ever since, living primarily outdoors for more than 20 years. He ended up in the Boston area partially because he grew up here, but also because his brother, Kerry Joyce, lives in Somerville.

Kerry Joyce expresses his frustration at his brother's homelessness.

"It's a chronically sad situation.... It's a struggle to live outside in an urban environment, where you're constantly vulnerable--it's more work than a job, really," he says. "We've tried to get him to explore other options, but it's difficult. He's an artist, and it's hard to go from being homeless to having a studio."

Reflecting on their past, Kerry Joyce says his brother had a happy, well-adjusted childhood in a middle-class home, graduating from St. Sebastian's Catholic High School in Needham.

"He had a lot of love growing up and still does," Kerry Joyce adds. "He is an intelligent, knowledgeable and moral human being. He just doesn't take certain things in stride the way other people do."

Although Brian Joyce once "semi-lived" at his brother's house, he currently stays outdoors in the Cambridge area but sees his brother several times a week.

Joyce declined to divulge exactly where he spends his nights for fear of police reprisals.

From his two decades on the streets he says he is disappointed with police treatment of the homeless.

"I've got dozens of cases of harassment and dozens of arrests on trumped-up misdemeanor charges, when they arrest me to satisfy police curiosity," he says. "There is no way, under the current thinking, that police are going to see the homeless as anything but a problem and vice versa."

Joyce blames his homelessness in large part on his inability to establish and maintain normal relationships.

"I've established no relationships on the street," he says. "I don't panhandle, because I refuse to initiate any relationships."

"I would get off the streets if I could," he says, "but I don't want to initiate that relationship either."

Joyce laments his plight, saying it might in fact be easier if his problems were greater.

"Being sane and homeless is worse than being insane and homeless," he says. "When they are insane, people make excuses for them."

A Family Man

James E. Taylor has a job and a family.

Taylor, born and raised in inner-city Boston, sells the Spare Change newspaper to make some cash. He has a wife and young son.

But that family is estranged, and Taylor spends his nights in shelters or with other family.

Over an onion and mushroom burger at Bartley's, Taylor pours his heart out, talking about his childhood, family, the similarities of shelters and prisons and the absence of morality in American society.

At one point he nearly breaks into tears while describing the pain and humiliation of being homeless.

Taylor, a recovering alcoholic, grew up in public housing in Roxbury, one of Boston's roughest neighborhoods, and was drawn into a vicious cycle from childhood.

"I grew up in the projects, and I succumbed to what goes on in there," he says. "I came from a broken home. I had a lot of emotional problems. But I'm not blaming them. I'm responsible for my own actions."

Growing up with many siblings, Taylor has the safety net of falling back on his brothers and sisters.

Taylor has been living in shelters and on the occasional friend's couch since December, but this is not his first bout with homelessness.

He had lived on the streets during 1984 and 1985 at the peak of his battle with alcoholism.

Taylor says he was saved from the streets that first time by his wife, Greta, who helped clean him up and bring him back into society.

The two have an eight-year-old son, James Jr., who Taylor calls his "pride and joy."

"One of my primary goals in life," he says, "is not to abandon my son the way my father abandoned me at such a young age."

But the strain of alcoholism has at times proved too much for him. Taylor says he has been on and off alcohol since his marriage.

His biggest regret, he says, is that has not always been the father he wants to be to his son.

Taylor says he looks to God for help with his difficulties.

"I think only God's unconditional love has kept me on this earth," he says. "Without that, I would have killed myself by now."

"I hope that God will someday give me the strength to find a stable home and family," he adds.

Taylor now participates in Alcoholics Anonymous and says he is staying sober one day at a time.

He was eager to refute the popular conception of the homeless. Each person, he says, has a specific story and a specific reason for their condition--including him.

"A lot of people see the homeless as lazy, that they don't want to work," he says. "I tried to get into the work field, but I have a police record from making bad decisions while under the influence of alcohol."

Taylor remains hopeful for his future.

"What I'd really like to do," he says, "is help other homeless people if I could, but I have to help myself first."