Middle Class and Homeless | David Raether | TEDxAmherst
Summary
TLDRIn this heartfelt speech, a former TV writer shares his journey from success to homelessness, reflecting on his fall from a lucrative career, personal loss, and eventual resilience. Once a writer for hit shows like 'Roseanne,' he describes the pain of losing everything, including his home and family, and the humbling experience of living on the streets for nearly two years. He speaks about the lessons of hunger, resourcefulness, and overcoming shame, emphasizing that poverty is painful but not shameful, and ultimately celebrates his personal growth through hardship.
Takeaways
- 🏠 The speaker was homeless for nearly two years, not due to addiction or crime, but because of financial failure and career loss.
- 📉 The speaker's career in TV writing collapsed after stepping away to focus on family, as the TV industry shifted towards reality programming and reduced opportunities for sitcom writers.
- 👨👩👧👦 The speaker had eight children and took time off from work to restore balance in his family, but struggled to find work when he tried to return to television.
- 💼 Despite having a successful career and earning significant money, the speaker's fortunes changed, and he applied for over 2,500 jobs without success, eventually losing his house to foreclosure.
- 🛌 The speaker shares the emotional and physical challenges of homelessness, describing how he slept under stairwells and in parking lots, learning to ‘defeat the night’ each day.
- 🥪 The speaker describes hunger as a complex and profound state, explaining how it leads to a strange, calm acceptance after a few days of not eating.
- 📚 The speaker learned that material possessions are replaceable, but what he missed most during his homeless years was having a room, a bed, and the people he loved.
- 🛏️ The speaker emphasizes the value of simple things like a bed, describing it as a personal paradise and source of comfort.
- 😔 The speaker discusses the shame often associated with poverty in America, but argues that being poor is not shameful—rather, it is painful and challenging.
- 💪 The speaker is proud of surviving homelessness, saying that those years were formative and helped him understand his own resilience and ability to endure hardship.
Q & A
What is the speaker's background before becoming homeless?
-The speaker was a TV writer for about 12 years, including a stint on the show 'Roseanne,' where they worked on 11 episodes. They made a significant income, up to $300,000 a year, with an additional $650,000 one year for creating TV show ideas.
How did the speaker’s career and financial situation deteriorate?
-After stepping away from TV to focus on their family, the TV industry changed, with the rise of reality shows and a decrease in sitcoms. By the time the speaker tried to return to TV, jobs were scarce, and they struggled to find work, sending out over 2,500 resumes without success. This led to financial ruin, losing their house to foreclosure.
What led the speaker to homelessness?
-After years of financial decline, losing their home, and being unable to find work, the speaker’s wife returned to Germany with some of their children. The speaker arranged for their two high-school children to stay with families, which left them without a place to stay, eventually becoming homeless.
What emotions did the speaker experience on their first night of homelessness?
-The speaker described feeling stung, embarrassed, and humiliated, comparing it to being punched in the face unexpectedly. Despite their attempts to minimize the situation by telling themselves it wasn’t so bad, the reality of being exposed and vulnerable set in.
How did the speaker manage daily life while homeless?
-The speaker learned to 'defeat the night' by finding safe and quiet places to sleep, such as parking garages. They became resourceful and learned to navigate the challenges of homelessness, adapting to their new reality over the course of two years.
What lessons did the speaker learn about hunger during their time on the streets?
-The speaker learned that true hunger, the kind experienced after several days without food, is a complex and profound state. It brings a strange calm and lack of anxiety as the body and mind adapt to the situation, though it is not a pleasant experience.
What does the speaker say about material possessions after losing everything?
-The speaker reflected that material possessions are completely replaceable. After once owning a large house filled with items, they were left with only a wallet their daughter made in school. The speaker emphasized that material things can always be bought again.
What was the most important thing the speaker missed while being homeless?
-The speaker said that the one thing they truly missed was having a room, a bed, and the people they loved. They spoke about how there is nothing better than having a bed, a safe and private place where they could rest and feel protected.
How does the speaker view the concept of shame in relation to poverty and homelessness?
-The speaker learned that being poor and homeless is not shameful, although in America, it is often treated as such. They came to be proud of their experience, emphasizing that while being poor is painful and devastating, it is not something to be ashamed of.
What is the speaker’s overall message at the end of their talk?
-The speaker conveyed that their years of poverty and homelessness were some of the best because they learned resilience, endurance, and what they were truly capable of. They also expressed optimism, knowing they would have a great story to tell once they overcame those hardships.
Outlines
🏠 Overcoming Homelessness and a Shattered Life
In 2009, the speaker was homeless, sleeping under a stairwell in a Pasadena parking lot. If someone had told him that within six years he'd be speaking to students at a prestigious university, he would have dismissed it. He was not homeless due to addiction or crime but due to the failure of his career, financial ruin, and family breakdown. The speaker had been a successful TV writer for shows like 'Roseanne,' making large sums of money, but that life didn't translate well into his role as a father and husband. Ultimately, he found himself alone and homeless for nearly two years, a profound experience that shaped his perspective on life.
📉 The Collapse of a TV Career
After taking time off to focus on his family, the speaker tried to return to TV writing, only to find that the industry had drastically changed. Sitcoms had largely been replaced by reality shows, and staff sizes had shrunk. At 50 years old, the speaker found it nearly impossible to find work in an industry that viewed him as 'no longer funny.' Between 2005 and 2011, he sent out over 2,500 applications and resumes, but received no job offers. The family’s financial situation worsened, and by 2006, they lost their house to foreclosure. His wife, a German citizen, moved back to Germany with their younger children, leaving him homeless.
🛌 Learning to Survive the Streets
The first night of homelessness was jarring and humiliating for the speaker. With no home, he wandered the streets of Pasadena and ended up in a park, struggling with the realization that he was no better than the other homeless people around him. Fear of danger, like being attacked or arrested, led him to find a safer place in a parking garage under a stairwell, where he slept. This became his routine for the next two years. Through this experience, he discovered his own resilience, resourcefulness, and the sobering reality of hunger, which transforms after days without food into a strange, calm acceptance of the situation.
💼 Losing Everything but Gaining Clarity
Reflecting on what he lost, the speaker shares that material possessions are ultimately replaceable. Once wealthy, with a large home and many belongings, all he now had left from his past life was a wallet his daughter had made for him. What he truly missed was not the stuff but having a room, a bed, and being surrounded by loved ones. He expresses how a bed became a symbol of comfort, safety, and home. It's the simple things, like a bed to sleep in, that are irreplaceable and invaluable.
😔 Overcoming the Shame of Poverty
The speaker concludes by discussing the shame he felt while being homeless. He hid his situation from his children and dressed normally to avoid uncomfortable questions. He realized that in America, poverty is often viewed as shameful, but through his experience, he learned that poverty is not something to be ashamed of. It's painful and devastating, but not a reflection of personal failure. He is proud of having endured homelessness, as it was a testament to his resilience. This period of his life, though difficult, showed him what he could survive and gave him a story of strength and survival.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Homelessness
💡Shame
💡Resilience
💡Career Collapse
💡Family
💡Television Industry
💡Poverty
💡Resourcefulness
💡Hunger
💡Loss
Highlights
In 2009, the speaker was homeless, sleeping under a stairwell in a Pasadena parking lot.
Reflecting back, the speaker could never have imagined addressing university students years later.
Speaker's career was as a TV writer, with notable experience working on the show 'Roseanne.'
Earning up to $300,000 a year, he seemed successful but felt a disconnect between work success and family life.
Balancing TV writing and parenting proved difficult; his work hours left little family time.
Took time off from work to rebuild his family relationship but struggled to re-enter the industry due to the rise of reality TV.
From 2001 to 2002, the TV industry shrank significantly, with sitcom opportunities decreasing.
Despite sending over 2,500 applications, he couldn’t secure a new position in the entertainment field.
After foreclosure, his wife and some children moved to Germany while he was left homeless in California.
Sleeping on benches and stairwells, he had to adapt to a new, challenging daily routine.
Learned resilience, humility, and resourcefulness while being homeless, which shaped his outlook on life.
Speaker discusses the psychological depth of true hunger, especially after going days without food.
Lost all physical possessions, retaining only a handmade wallet his daughter crafted.
Realized that material items are replaceable, but his most valued things were a bed, room, and family.
Embraced his experience of homelessness and destitution as transformative, realizing it is not shameful to be poor.
Transcripts
[Music]
so um in 2009 on this very evening I was
crawled underneath a stairwell in a
underground parking lot three stories
down in Pasadena California and I had my
head on a napsack I had my coat as a
blanket I was trying to fall
asleep and if on that night someone had
snuggled up next to me and whispered to
me hey in six years you're going to be
standing in an auditorium at the
University of Massachusetts one of the
great public universities of America and
you're going to be talking to the
students there I would have turned to
that person and said of
course
naturally I was homeless and not briefly
I was homeless off and on I lived on the
streets for nearly two
years I was neither a drug addict nor an
alcoholic nor was I a criminal but I had
committed one of the basic American sins
I had
failed over the course of about eight
years my career ended my savings
vanished we lost the house then my
family broke apart and I ended up
homeless and alone
it was an incredible
experience and uh one that has shaped me
in many
ways I uh the reason it was so hard for
me was I I was a TV writer so the fall
was really
tremendous I was a I wrote on television
for about 12 years including a stint on
Rosanne where I worked on1 episodes of
that great
show so uh if you're wondering is TV
comedy writing a great job are you
kidding it's the greatest job ever
invented you sit around in a room with
eight eight or 10 other SM smart funny
equally neurotic people arguing about a
script all day long and then at some
point you walk down to the stage and you
get to see actors rehearse your speech
rehearse your lines see see this this
thing you've written come alive then on
tape night there's a studio audience of
real people and they're laughing at
stuff you wrote that's being said by
these great actors and then afterwards
you go to a saloon and you commiserate
and you get and you and you just
congratulate yourself over and over it's
the greatest job
ever
except it
wasn't now I made a lot of money as a TV
writer um I uh as a writer producer
you're compensated on an episode basis
and in the late '90s I was making about
$300,000 a year then there was one year
where a studio paid me another
$650,000 just to come up with ideas for
TV series it was Heaven except it wasn't
for my family it wasn't for my wife
Marina and it wasn't for my eight
children that's just yeah that's right
[Music]
eight just as a side note I would just
say there was no religious or
philosophical reason for it we just had
eight kids but
anyway um now the skill set that I had
as a as a TV writer you know being a
wise weisenheimer guy who could always
argue all day long that really didn't
apply that it wasn't a transferable
skill set to a real family with a real
wife and real kid
when you have uh I mean I was paid a lot
of money to come up with great lines for
a sitcom dad to say to his sitcom
daughter who was going through a sitcom
crisis that doesn't transfer real well
when you're dealing with a real daughter
and real sons and a real
wife and the burden of plus the hours
were tremendous I would work from 10: in
the morning of until 3:00 a.m. the
following morning the easy the easy days
were tape nights where we ended around
around
11:00 so I was barely at home the house
wasn't really a home for me it was a
place I checked in on on the
weekends and my wife Marina was really
struggling so I needed to step away I'd
made a lot of money I'd done real well
it was time for me to focus on my real
job which was husband and father and so
I took a couple of years
off and it was great I restored balance
to my
family I was happy things calmed down
then I decided you know what it's time
for me to go back to
television well television had other
ideas in the time that I was out on my
uh leave to be a father reality
programming
boomed and in 2001 2002 there were 403
sitcoms on
television uh two years later
when I was thinking of returning they're
now about 30 and the staff sizes had
shrunk dramatically by 2007 2008 there
were 18 sitcoms left on
television Plus at this point I was Now
50 which they don't they don't really
tell you this until you get to that
point at 50 you're officially no longer
funny
so anyway so I just couldn't find work
there was impossible to me for me to
find work so I thought well I'll just do
I'll just find other work writing or
editing
jobs I sent out between 2006 2005 I
should say and 2011 I did a search on my
my email
accounts looking for the word resume or
application I sent out
2541 applications or resumés and I got
no
jobs so by
2006 we were in big trouble we lost our
house to
foreclosure now I should just say
this when you you when you lose your
house to foreclosure you actually you
don't lose the house the house doesn't
go anywhere you're the one who's lost
you're the one who has to
leave we struggled for another couple of
years and by 2008 we were absolutely
broke I had four children still at home
two in high school and two in middle
school and Elementary School Marina my
wife is a German citizen so she said
look why don't I just go to Germany I we
can live off the benevolence of the
German welfare state and so I found
places families for my two who were in
high school to stay while I tried to see
if I could get something
going and that left me homeless I had no
place to stay say now the first night
you're
homeless it has this stinging feeling
like you've just been punched in the
face you know like when you're in eighth
grade and you're fighting you know the
slow fat kid and and you're you're like
you're going to beat him up and all a
sudden he hits you in the face and you
didn't I mean like how did that happen
to me how did I get punched in the face
by that kid it
hurts it's embarrassing it's
humiliating and so then you just go home
and you come home and your mother's
making soup and she asks how your day
was and you say it was fine just leave
me alone and you go to your room and you
lie in her bed except on this
night there was no one making soup for
me there was no home to go to there was
no
bed I was
homeless so I thought well Passad it's a
nice night I'll go for a walk so I
started walking around this won't be so
bad I can do this
and all these other lies that you would
tell yourself to try to make it feel
like you weren't really going through
this I ended up in a
park and um you know it's like it's
about midnight now D was starting to
settle on the benches of the I sit on
the park
bench and uh I see there's a homeless
man over there with his shopping cart
and stuff AR out and I'm
think seems to have figured it out
and then I thought nah you know I'm not
like him I'm better than him except I'm
not better than him I am him I'm the
exact same person as
him maybe I can so I sit there on the
bench and for about an hour maybe it's a
few minutes my head starts to droop I
start to fall asleep then I wake up I
don't want to sleep on the bench I'm too
exposed someone could come along and
beat me up take my back back or maybe
the police would come and arrest me for
sleeping in the park or maybe a coyote
would attack I mean I've seen Coyotes
out in the city at this time of night
they're always on some
Mission maybe they just go for garbage
or an old weakened
animal hey wait a
minute maybe in this light I look like
an old weakened
animal so I decide to get up and I go
walk some more and there it is a parking
garage I walked down into it I walked
around and I found a space under the
stairwell it was dark it was quiet it
was still warm from the heat of the day
I laid down put a backpack put my head
down on my backpack covered myself with
my
coat and slowly almost effortlessly
I finally fell
asleep I had defeated the
night and that's what I did and had to
do for the next two years every day I
had to defeat the
night I learned a lot of things about
myself when I was homeless I learned
that I'm more resourceful than I ever
knew I'm significantly less respectable
than I imagined
and I'm far more resilient than I ever
dreamed I also learned something
interesting about
Hunger um now I'm talking about Hunger
the int the physical or psychological
state of hunger you know of all the
psychological States you can be in
intellectual fervor erotic desire
religious Joy uh fear
anger hunger is the most complex and
profound now by hunger I don't mean je I
didn't have lunch today I'm
starving that's not hunger that's
hungry hunger is what you experience
when you go three four five days without
eating much and the first few days you
have a lot of anxiety you're thinking
constantly about food you're edgy you're
desperate you're on uh you don't know
what's going to happen but around the
third or fourth day you start this calm
sort of starts to come over you it
starts to almost just fall on
you you start to not worry so much your
clothes start to drape on you which is
not a bad
feeling but it's not a it's a sort of
bliss but it's not a pleasant Bliss it's
it's just an it's just a bliss where
there's no an anxiety you're just
relaxed do you know there's no solution
your
problem so you're just going to let it
go you're just going to experience what
you're going to
experience and that's
it what have I what did I what did I
take from from being uh from when I went
through well in some senses I took
nothing from being homeless and poor I
mean literally
nothing before I uh when when I was
doing well I had a five bedroom 4,000
foot house in San Marino California
which is one of the wealthiest suburbs
in in California it was full of books
and art and appliances and grand piano
and clothes and I had three cars and
after
it I show you this is what I have left
this is all I have left from that
life this is a
wallet this is a wallet my daughter made
for
me in a leather crafting class when she
was in sixth grade 20 years ago this is
it this is all I have
left one of the things I learned about
all this stuff I
have is that stuff is completely
replaceable
they have stores now that are selling
stuff you can just go there buy all of
it bring in your house and you you got
everything that you used to have you can
get it
back but the the one thing that I really
wanted that the one thing that I truly
missed was a room and a bed and the
people I
love you know let me just say this about
a bed
there is nothing better than a
bed this is my
place this is where I go these walls are
my protection this I crawl under this
the blankets at night I put my head and
on that pillow and I fall asleep this is
my
Aiden it's my Paradise
the other thing I learned about during
my years and really this is the final
thing I'd like to point about is about
shame I hid my situation from virtually
everyone I used to dress like this I
looked like a normal
person
um because one reason is I didn't want
my children have to add uncomfortable
questions about what was going on with
their father but the other thing is that
in America
it is shameful to be
poor and one of the things I learned in
the two years that I lived on the street
is no it's not shameful to be
poor being poor and homeless and
vulnerable is
painful difficult and devastating but it
is not
shameful I am proud that I was poor and
homeless I am proud that I was
vulnerable and alone because those years
were the best of
me and I know what I can get through I
know what I can endure and I'll have a
great story when I get to the other side
thank you
[Applause]
[Music]
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