Ask Roger how he’s doing, and he’ll tell you he’s “too blessed to be stressed.” One of ten children, he spent some of his early years in juvenile detention and most of his adult life sleeping on the streets of Nashville or on the couches and porches of friends.
As Roger tells it, he did “a lot of bad stuff back in the day.” He says it wasn’t until he was in an accident and “God stepped in” that he was able to turn himself around.
“I was in a coma for a long time, and when I woke up, that’s when I noticed I was rhyming words. I’d never done that before.”
According to his brother, the most obvious side effect of Roger’s accident was his sudden desire to write songs. He’d never crafted a rhyme or written a country song before the accident, and today, he writes them regularly in a beat-up spiral notebook, which he loses periodically on the bus. Roger never met a stranger. He is a natural comedian, and those who meet him are often charmed by his candid demeanor.
After years of experiencing homelessness, Roger came to Park Center on his own and asked for help. He needed, as he put it “someone with knowledge from college” to help him find a place to live. Roger’s goals are to help other people experiencing homelessness whenever he can and to “learn to be a better speller.”
Last year, he attended a few classes at the Council on Adult Literacy and plans to continue classes. After ten months of searching, Roger secured housing through Park Center’s Residential Services program. Today, he checks in regularly with the staff who love chatting with him and always look forward to hearing a new “Rogerism”.
