Memoirs of A Healer/Clinical Social Worker: Autobiography of Bruce Whealton

Chapter 62: Living In A Drug Infested Crime-Ridden Part Of Durham

As I mentioned previously, I had no sense of support and/or options for where to go. My income and funds were very limited. I saw a listing for a one-room apartment in Durham. It seemed like a good choice because, unlike most rentals situations you need to come up with two month's rent and a security deposit, this apartment only required an upfront payment of one week.

I soon learned that the location was not somewhere where I should have been living. It was located on Holloway Street in Durham which is not far from downtown and the main library. I was learning that this area was known to be a drug-infested, crime-ridden part of Durham – not a place for someone like me.

I could sense as someone who should not be walking alone especially at night on those streets. Few people should be walking alone down that street if they wanted to stay safe.

There was actually a bed and breakfast up the street from the apartment that catered to a more affluent person, but it was behind a gate. Still, it seemed strangely out of place.

On the street, you could see needles that had been discarded. These obviously were used for illicit drug use.

The house had two floors. Each room was a separate Single Room Occupancy (SRO) apartment. There were five rooms upstairs and five rooms downstairs. The stairs were the first thing you see when you open the front door. Each tenant received a key to their room. My apartment was the first one on the right as you enter the front door. Down the hall, there was a soda machine and a snack machine. Then at the end of the hall, to the right, there was another hall with a shared bathroom and shower. To the left was the kitchen area with a stove and microwave for the tenants to prepare their meals.

Next to the kitchen was another door that leads outside to the driveway. Around the back was an apartment where Scott was living. Scott was the one who collected the rent each week and gave us a receipt. I believe he was getting free rent in exchange for this service and a few other small responsibilities that he had.

The landlord was named Jimmy, but he never collected the rent. We always paid Scott. Jimmy sometimes came to visit and to stock the soda and snack machines. He seemed nice enough for a while.

He introduced me to a very nice woman named Grace who I befriended. She was very attractive. She was a single mother with two children. From time to time, she would take me to the Durham Bulls to see a baseball game. Other times she had me come to her place to work on her computer.

Beginning in June, Jimmy contracted with me to build a dating website. He understood that it would take a while to do this. We could buy profiles that would make the site look like there were members and that hopefully would encourage people to want to join the website - for a free trial that would convert to a paid subscription. This arrangement was in exchange for my weekly rent.

At this same point, the Division of Vocational Rehabilitation (VR) had funded my training to get a certificate in web design from North Carolina State University in Raleigh. Following the completion of that, they were funding the startup costs for me to start a home-based web design business.

The fact that I had discovered years earlier that computer or other technical jobs were not for me did not seem to matter with my counselor.

I felt so little self-esteem or self-confidence and my sense of hope and identity was non-existent. So, I went along with this idea.

Working with VR, we developed a business plan with a list of start-up expenses that VR would fund. My counselor at VR, Eric Peters, asked me "where are you going to run the business?"

That seemed like an unusual question since we knew it was going to be a home-based business. He pointed out that the neighborhood was known to be a drug-infested crime-ridden area in Durham. That's obviously problematic for having people come to the business which might happen from time to time. In addition, they were concerned about the possible theft of property that was owned by VR. As part of the plan, VR would maintain ownership of the computer equipment for a few years.