Formerly homeless, man finds a room of his own

Bob Wright used to crisscross the country on a motorcycle, towing his dog, Beano, in a custom-made trailer. The pair covered about 100,000 miles.

He held myriad jobs, installing and repairing copper and slate roofs, breeding cattle in Florida, and driving herds in chilly North Dakota.

He has a host of stories related to those experiences, but his tales from recent years have an entirely different theme - daily survival.

Even though he has finally come in from the cold, you can usually still find Wright telling those tales from what has served as his daytime headquarters for more than a decade - a niche outside the Park Street Church.

Wright, who calculates his age at about 58, became homeless in 1995 when he was burned out of a rooming house in Framingham. More than 12 years of battling to survive on the streets followed.

"I still carry the newspaper story about the fire with me," Wright said. "Two people were killed that night, and they thought I was dead, too, when they dragged me out."

With no possessions left, Wright ventured to Boston and soon found the church. There, he would set up his small folding chair, a clamshell full of birdseed, a cigar box for donations, and two signs. One stated: "Homeless by Fire," and the other: "Smile, it's the Law."

Wright was confident he could survive on the streets, because he and his late brother had done so as children. "We grew up in the Home for Little Wanderers and a whole slew of foster homes, which we regularly ran away from."

During the winter, he would often build an igloo or burrow into a snow bank to keep warm at night. Sometimes he slept in the subway. MBTA police didn't roust him because he wasn't a troublemaker, Wright said.

Like many homeless people, he would set up camp under bridges along the Expressway in milder weather. He frequented soup kitchens but stayed away from shelters, afraid his few possessions would be stolen by other homeless people.

Six years into his stint on the streets, at a time when he was battling alcoholism, Wright tried to commit suicide. "I was depressed," he said. "The thought of suicide is always right here when you're homeless, sitting on your shoulder." He survived his attempt and stopped drinking.

Because of his engaging manner, Wright, over time, made many friends at his Park Street corner. One, a Boston librarian, would often bring him her leftovers from the previous night's dinner. Another was Boston civil rights lawyer Jonathan Margolis, who passed Wright every day on his way to work and struck up a friendship with him four years ago. He has frequently taken Wright shopping to get him warm clothing and boots. Margolis also has taken Wright to work on his sailboat, moored in Salem, and had him for Christmas dinner last year at his Brookline home.

"One of the biggest differences between Bob and me is I picked more affluent parents," Margolis said. "In some ways, it's a roll of the dice."

Norwell resident Christina Nordstrom also befriended Wright, and provided him with some friendly chatter on her way to work as well as weekly Stop & Shop gift cards, which Wright used to purchase food, heat packs for his hands and feet, and other supplies.

There were times when Wright would simply drop out of sight, and Nordstrom and Margolis would keep in touch with each other via e-mail until they tracked him down. They usually would find him in a hospital, since he suffers from myriad health problems, including diabetes.

Finally, after Wright spent most of last summer in the hospital for a kidney condition and related problems, Nordstrom and Margolis played critical roles in permanently bringing him out of the cold last October. He now lives in his own studio apartment in the Ruggles Affordable Assisted Living Community, run by the nonprofit organization, Hearth. The building, a former school near Dudley Square, contains 43 furnished studio apartments for the homeless or those at risk of becoming homeless.

Hearth also runs five other facilities of varying sizes in the Boston area, counting on federal and state funding, along with some private donations.

"We've housed 400 people since we started and have been able to place another 800 people through outreach," said Mark Hinderlie, Hearth's executive director. "All of them were homeless or at risk."

Hinderlie said the demand for rooms far outstrips availability. "Right now we have 136 units of permanent housing and they're all full."

Wright, who was wheelchair-bound when he first arrived at Ruggles last fall straight from the hospital, now has help managing his medication.

"I put my laundry out and it gets done, and they even make my bed," Wright said.

"You're in another world when you come here. You have to have lived it to know what it's like. I'm not in combat anymore. It's hard to get used to, but I love it. It makes me feel like a person."

Not surprisingly, Wright bears a few scars from his time on the streets.

"Bob had many people make him promises, and many times he was disappointed," Margolis said. "So he is distrustful sometimes that things will get better. I think, on some level, he's probably still concerned it's all going to end."

As Wright sat on the edge of his bed and chatted last week, he made certain that his back was to the wall. He also placed a chair, faced backward, beside his spot on the bed, recreating his nook in front of the Park Street Church.

Wright gets anxious when visitors stand in the narrow corridor between his room and the exit to the hall. "It's my only way out," he said.

And when Wright goes out on errands or down to his Park Street corner, he still takes his portable shopping cart filled with most of his valued possessions.

On most days, Wright takes the Silver Line bus down to his old Park Street Church niche.

"I go there during the commuter time early in the morning, and I leave by the time the tourists come," he said.

He still places out his clamshell full of birdseed, but no longer displays his "Homeless by Fire" sign.

"Smile, it's the Law" remains.

"I have to keep going down to Park Street," Wright said. "My friends wouldn't know where I had gone if I just went in there and disappeared."

Christine Legere can be reached at christinelegere@yahoo.com.