Tim Robertson

Tim Robertson met the love of his life, Sylvia Anita Rivera, outside of the Chinatown Navigation Center, a homeless housing program, 20 years ago. The day after he met her, her kidneys failed.

Robertson became homeless after running out of money and opportunities to support her. She passed away about two and a half years ago after being on dialysis for many years.

“I grew to love my gal,” says Robertson, explaining the course of their relationship. “It went from friendship and helping someone, to finding love… So I couldn’t let her die. As long as there was a medical way to help her enjoy some of life, I needed to help make that happen.”

Robertson’s inability to pay for Rivera’s treatment put him in jail for 90 days, found guilty of embezzlement. From there, he picked up work wherever accepted him, considering his criminal record. He worked odd jobs until reaching the point where he had two strokes within weeks of each other in his early fifties. Twenty years later, he’s had four strokes and a heart attack but says that he would have done anything for his soulmate to give her a year, month, or a day.

Seeking out housing after serving time in jail, the now Chinatown inhabitant found an available room with an old friend, Tony Lopez, or as Robertson describes him, the son he never had. Robertson has since gone back to Lopez after the passing of Rivera, moving in the night she died, and he still pays Lopez rent although he doesn’t live there. He explains that because his friend is a father to three, Robertson no longer wanted to be a financial burden, so he moved out.

"You have to either have hatred or compassion when you’re down here.”

After Robertson lost his place to stay, his soulmate and his life savings, the Salinas occupant spent four months on the sidewalk outside of Dorothy’s Place, a commercial kitchen near the Navigation Center, with a couple of bags to his name. But even as he was robbed in his sleep and jumped, regardless of his age and condition, Robertson never looked negatively at his time on the street.

“To me, I never accepted it as a bad thing, but as another challenge that you have in life to grow, to learn more, to understand more,” explains Robertson. “You have to either have hatred or compassion when you’re down here.”

Robertson says that people from the outside have room to grow when it comes to learning the truth about homelessness and avoiding misconceptions and will be better for seeing a small fraction of what it’s like to be homeless, beginning with changing the belief that homeless people are of their own making.

"It’s sad. It’s also humor. The love of other people. But it ends tragically. It’s people that are lost that are still alive.”

As a recovered alcoholic, Robertson says that people at any age can get trapped as addiction can take the control that its user loses, lacking resources and bodily autonomy to the point that they don’t have a chance at real life anymore. Explaining that compassion taught him to understand people, he adds that the souls of the people he has met on the streets have stayed with him, but his age prevents him from making a difference.

“Homelessness here, to me, is the Cuckoo’s Nest from ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,’” says Robertson. “It’s sad. It’s also humor. The love of other people. But it ends tragically. It’s people who are lost that are still alive.”

"These people… they’re not just names. They’re people."

The Navigation Center inhabitant says that people who have lost self-control due to substance abuse still deserve a safe place where they are cared for and where there are others who feel compassion for them, even if they are responsible for their current situation and made that choice, to not condemn them to life on the streets of being preyed upon and a target.

“These people… they’re not just names. They’re people,” says Robertson, highlighting that those who are functional should not be written off, and should have a chance at life that they wouldn’t have if somebody didn’t step up to help. He says that people should be given a chance to enjoy life.

Robertson was referred to the Navigation Center by an employee of the program and an old friend, but refused to leave the streets, explaining that he hadn’t learned all that he needed to know yet and wanted to stay for another month, adding that unless you go through it yourself, you can’t feel the same exchange of compassion and knowledge in your bones, like a soldier coming back from war. According to Robertson, a snapshot of it just isn’t accurate.

Even in his early childhood, jumped by a neighborhood gang, the advocate for learning emphasizes that anything can be an opportunity to grow and that friends matter more than enemies. Later, he ended up at the Navigation Center after learning about compassion and a different way of life. He describes the shelter as one of the most compassionate places he’s ever encountered, and that it’s a chance for those who haven’t experienced the good in life to reacquaint themselves with society and grow and opportunities that may not have been previously available.

Although it’s the first housing program that he has ever been in, Robertson describes the atmosphere and opportunities presented at the Navigation Center as unusual and special, especially for those who want a break, a chance to get housing and to be on their own.

Robertson clarifies that he has had a good life, making him a minority as a homeless person. He explains that most people around him have struggled from the time of their early childhood, running away and developing drug addictions early on, and have never tasted a good life.

Growing up in Monrovia, he was surrounded by the unabating love of his mother, describing her as one of the few people that taught him compassion in the first place. His mother, his soulmate, Rivera, his late high school friend, Michael Joseph Bonsante and his grandparents, molded the way he is now and helped him form his values. The third-generation immigrant had genetic ties to tenacious people, including his grandmother and his grandfather, self-educated in his field and a well-loved boss. His grandfather managed three refrigeration plants in Tulare, Castroville and Salinas before passing away when Robertson was seven years old.

Looking forward, Robertson is aware of the limitations that can come with age, explaining that brain damage and Alzheimer's disease aren’t ideal when trying to get housed. He hopes to impact others through relationships and continue to hold on to his values of gaining knowledge and empathy.

“Bottom line: learning experience. My current situation as a homeless person is one of the hardest and best parts of my life. It may come at the end, but it’s one of the best parts of my life.”