Prodigal Father

In February the LA Times ran a story about a homeless man with an elaborate "house" underneath a freeway overpass. Two weeks later the story took an unexpected turn.

Homelessness is a problem that's easy to overlook but this story helps to remind me that each homeless person is someone's father, mother, child, sister or brother and should be treated with dignity and respect.

From the LA Times (February)...

I caught sight of it out of the corner of my eye, as my bus pulled off the Harbor Freeway. It looked like an elaborate fort, spreading out from a concrete wall alongside a busy off-ramp near USC. I could make out a bed and couch, rimmed by what looked like book cases. And on the sidewalk out front, a child-sized table and chairs.

The bus driver told me it had been there for months. He'd heard that a family was homesteading there.

So I paid a visit, prepared for a story of pain and loss.

Instead, I found Eddie Dotson.

From the LA Times (June)...

The e-mails arrived in March, within an hour of one another -- one from New York City, the other from Austin, Texas.

"My name is Ericka Dotson. I just received word of your story published in the LA Times about my father. My brother and I have been looking for him for over 12 years. This is the happiest day of my life!"

The other was from her brother, Tre:

"Eddie Dotson is my father. . . . Thank you very much for speaking so kindly about him; he's a great man!"

Failed business ventures and a broken marriage had sent him hitchhiking from Austin to Los Angeles in 1990. But his story didn't explain his homeless status. He was an Air Force veteran with a college degree who spoke proudly of his son and daughter, now 34 and 38. He hadn't left Texas, he told me, until "they didn't need me anymore."

His daughter's e-mail suggested otherwise: "PLEASE call me as soon as you receive this," Ericka wrote me. "I will book a ticket to LA right away to see him."

I printed out the e-mails and showed them to Eddie. His posture softened and eyes grew moist. I dialed Ericka's number and handed him my phone...