Illness takes man from Easy Street to poverty row
Part I of four parts
By Nancy Needham  nancy@theacorn.com

David Berger, a man so downtrodden he now feels useless most of the time, was earning more than $100,000 annually about four years ago.

In 2004, Berger had a house, a new car, a wife and children. He worked as a consultant to the food management industry. Then he got seriously ill, he said, and lost everything.

"I had vomiting and diarrhea and could not go to work. I just got sicker, sicker, sicker," Berger said.

In September 2005 he was diagnosed with a blood disorder after he went to the hospital with high blood pressure and a heart rate of 135 beats per minute. Doctors feared his too thick blood would cause him to have a stroke. Berger didn't realize his troubles were just beginning.

He lost his wife through divorce. His medical insurance and his house disappeared. He said he can no longer talk to his children because he cannot afford to pay child support.

Berger was living in his car in Kansas but the weather got too cold, so he bought gas with the last money he had and drove to Moorpark to live with is father.

He was driving to a free clinic in Simi Valley when a police officer pulled him over because his car registration had expired. After hearing his sad tale, she let him off with a warning. Then his driver's license expired. He borrowed $28 from his dad and went to the Department of Motor Vehicles in Thousand Oaks to renew his license.

While he was there, he asked how much he would need to pay for his car registration. He was told it would cost about $250. There was no way he could ever get that much money, he said. It would take a miracle.

The man at the DMV drew Berger a map to a place he said might be able to help him. The man couldn't remember its name.

Berger, 39, decided it was worth a try, so late that Friday afternoon he headed out to the place with no name and ended up at the Under One Roof facility on Hillcrest Drive. There he found a woman from Catholic Charities still working in the office that had officially closed for the weekend. She listened to him and made an appointment for him to return the following Wednesday.

When Berger came back, she told him something unusual had happened. The charity had received a $500 donation to use however it wanted. The board had met and decided it would use part of the donation to pay for his car registration. Berger said he could hardly believe it.

"When I went back to the DMV, the man I had spoken with motioned for me to come over. I told him what happened and how the place he had sent me to had been able to help. Then he realized I also needed to have my car smog-checked.

"I couldn't go back and ask Catholic Charities for more; I knew they were going to use the rest of their money to help other people. I had to go back to my dad, who had just lost his job," Berger said.

At the smog-check facility he found himself talking to the man doing the work and telling him about his experiences with the charity and the DMV. When he paid him $50, the mechanic returned $20 and told him, "Go put some gas in your car."

Berger has been trying unsuccessfully to get on Social Security disability and on Medi-Cal. With the help of U.S. Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Thousand Oaks), his Social Security disability hearing has been set for Nov. 30, he said.

Sometimes, when he's able, he goes back to Under One Roof and helps out for an hour or two. When others come in discouraged and without hope, he tries to cheer them up. One woman he talked to asked him if she could make an appointment to come in and talk to him each week because she found his counseling very helpful.

"I told her I was not an employee, but a client like her," Berger said.

He still lives with his father, who is working again. Berger does what he can to help the charity that helped him when he had no place else to turn.

"They don't just hand out money. They only give to those who have an emergency," he said.

And only when they have money to give. Lutheran Social Services, a few doors down from Catholic Charities at Under One Roof, has only $1,500 to help those in need this month.

"Next year we'll get more grants, but now that's all we have," said Chris Poynter, program and development director.

She said it's heartbreaking to turn away people who come in for gas money to drive to work, who are about to have a utility turned off or who will be turned out into the street because they don't have enough rent money.

On Thurs., Nov. 15 Berger will speak at the third annual National Homeless and Hunger Awareness Forum, a community partnership event with Manna Food Pantry of the Conejo Valley, Catholic Charities, California Lutheran University/Office of Campus Ministry, Food Share of Ventura County, Many Mansions, the Ventura County Homeless and Housing Coalition and Lutheran Social Services.

The event is from 7 to 9 p.m. at California Lutheran University in the Preus-Brandt Forum.

For more information, contact Poynter at (805) 497-6207 or at cpoynter@lsssc.org.