Old Man Died Who Feed Homeless in Denver on Holidays
Community members and family, including staff and volunteers at Westside Cares, gathered for a memorial service for Steve Soete, a 62-year-old houseless man who died in July of 2021. Soete, a community member who frequented Westside Cares and The Sanctuary Church, died on a sidewalk in Colorado Springs on July 20 of health complications. (Video by Skyler Ballard)
On July 20, a 62-year-old homeless man died on the sidewalk by a busy street in west Colorado Springs.
For hours, drivers passed by and pedestrians cut a swath around his body. None of them alerted staff inside the nonprofit agency whose doors were yards from where he lay, or at the fire department station down the block. Nobody called 911, not until rush hour, when preschool teacher Cristiana Fanaro, her husband and young son drove down Colorado Avenue on their way to visit relatives.
"I came up to that part of the block and just saw on the side of the sidewalk, the bottom half of someone's body and just legs that didn't look right," said Fanaro.
She lived in that part of town and knew Westside Cares was a place where homeless residents could get assistance, help with accessing services and staples, even a place to charge their cell phones and a covered patio where, with permission, they could spend a night partially sheltered from the elements.
Fanaro's instincts, however, told her that the person on the sidewalk outside the agency wasn't asleep or even passed out.
"I'm not a doctor, I don't know anything about that, but the way he looked, anybody that would have even looked at him for even a split second — and there was plenty of foot traffic — would have known," she said.
She drove around the block, parked, and waited with the body for emergency personnel to arrive. During that time, many more people walked by. Only one reacted, she said, turning around after passing the scene to lock eyes with Fanaro.
"She was frightened, like, personally frightened … but then she walked away," Fanaro said. "That was the only reaction I saw out of anybody … and that's what bothered me the most, that nobody had done anything. I was completely appalled and disgusted with humanity."
Such thoughts kept sleep at bay that night. The next morning Fanaro got her son off to school then returned to Westside Cares.
She needed to know more about the man on the sidewalk.
She needed to know someone cared.
"I needed to know that wherever his family or loved ones might be, that they know that this person is gone," she said.
What she learned is that Stephen Lee Soete was a kind and genuine man who, despite his struggles and his demons, never forgot a birthday or a name. He loved his family and they loved him. They'd been preparing for a reunion in South Carolina, before they had to start planning a memorial in Colorado Springs.
"For the first time in 13 years, we were actually figuring out a way to get him home, get him off the streets," said Soete's sister, Lisa Nisbet. "It just sickens me that it didn't happen. And what sickens me more is that he didn't have to die, he didn't have to die alone."
Soete was born in 1958 in St. Louis and raised in Greenville, S.C., but it was always the Rocky Mountains that resonated in his soul.
"I used to say that he was part cowboy, like my dad. They always had a thing for the American West," said Nisbet, who lives in Charleston, S.C. "He was always a little bit of a rebel."
The oldest of five siblings in a tight-knit Catholic family, Soete headed west for the first time when he was 18, rebranding himself as "Sundance" once he reached the Springs in the mid 1970s. He stayed for about a year and a half, living mostly outdoors, before returning to his family.
Steve Soete, far left, was about 18 when this family photo was taken in the mid-to-late-1970s.
"We all missed him terribly and I know he really missed us, and I just remember him coming back was a huge homecoming," said Nisbet, about the sweetheart "Big Bro" who would randomly show up with flowers and chocolates for his mom and sisters, and loved animals (especially snakes). "Steve was always so thoughtful and caring, to everything and everyone. Even up until he died, he never neglected to call any of us on our birthdays."
By the turn of 1980, the "Soete Seven" were back together. The call of the West, and of addiction, were still strong in their "Big Bro," though.
"Drinking was always a big part of our family. My dad was the bartender that everybody in town wanted to have come and work at their club," Nisbet said. "It was just the generation we grew up in."
Soete was a tall man with a lean and muscular build, thick mop of wavy brown hair, and a look that used to remind his "Baby Sis" of a young Sam Elliott. After returning to South Carolina from Colorado, Soete put those good looks and love of drink to work behind the bar, swaggered through a series of jobs before throwing himself, full-force, into the family restaurant business. First, the Soete's helped open Greenville's first chicken wing joint, and then invested everything they had in a restaurant just outside the city, Nisbet said.
"Steve and my brother Greg were really into it, but it ended up not working out and my parents had to declare bankruptcy," she said. "I know that was a huge disappointment for my brothers, and I think Steve never felt like he was able to make it up to my dad."
The family patriarch died unexpectedly in 1998. The siblings lost their mother to complications of emphysema in 2007.
That's when Nisbet believes her brother gave up on the East Coast.
"The siblings, we all thought Steve's going to go out there to this place he loves, he's going to get a job, he's going to find an apartment, he's going to live a normal life," she said. "But that's not what happened."
Soete was one of the first people Kristy Milligan met when she started her job at Westside Cares four years ago. He immediately set her pulse at ease, and quickly became her friend.
When Soete was in the room, Milligan said she felt safer.
"That's not because he was big and bad and intimidating, it was because I knew he takes care of his community, and he always did," she said. "He was just a really quiet, gentle man, who was always pleasant to be around. He really only asked for help when he needed it, and that wasn't terribly often."
The non-profit held his mail and important documents, and sometimes helped him connect with family back east when he'd lost his phone. Westside Cares doesn't provide housing on-site, but can help connect people with temporary and more permanent places to live. Attempts to help Soete in that regard never seemed to work out.
Jim Stokes said he believes that's because his friend didn't want it.
"He's like all of us, come winter time. We'd all pitch in and get a hotel room for a couple days to warm up, but I don't really think Steve wanted to go indoors. He just loved his outdoors," Stokes said. "He had his places where he could go where nobody could find him."
Unless it was a Monday morning. On that day, Stokes always knew he could find his friend poring over the newspaper sports section and taking notes, for his football pools and more.
"He loved his sports," Stokes said. "He could tell you who was going to win and usually what he said turned out to be right."
Stokes, who volunteers at Westside Cares, said he knew that someone had died outside the building. He was shocked to learn that the man on the sidewalk had been his friend. He'd seen and talked with him just two days before.
"And he seemed like typical Steve, with his cane, but they say he'd been in the hospital. I didn't even know that … " said Stokes.
Lisa Nisbet knew her brother wasn't in good health. He'd had lung issues when he left South Carolina, and his habits and lifestyle since came with a high price.
"Colorado was really hard on his body, really hard, but he would always talk about it in such an awesome way. He just thought that the environment and nature were so incredibly beautiful," Nisbet said. "There were a couple times when we would be on the phone and I would say, well I could just fly out there and we could get dinner and I could get a hotel room … and he would always kind of figure out a way for that not to happen."
Attempts to get Soete into treatment for his drinking met with a similar response.
"I know that he knew he needed help with his alcoholism, but he would come right to the edge of seeking it then he would not go through with anything," Nesbit said. "That was the most jagged little pill I've ever had to swallow, realizing you just can't change people. They have to want to change."
Recently, though, change seemed to be on the horizon. Steve was talking about coming home. He was too old, too sick, to keep living on the streets, and he missed his family.
"He'd say, 'I can't take another winter out here Baby Sis,' and he finally meant it," Nisbet said.
Steve Soete was admitted to Memorial Hospital on June 21, with pain in his legs Nisbet thought was due to either dehydration or blood clots, for which he was on medication. An enlarged prostate had led to a urinary infection and sepsis. His red blood count was dropping and he needed multiple platelet transfusions.
Nisbet's older sister, Lauri Bertsche, was the family point person for the first week, calling the hospital regularly and sharing updates.
"My husband and I were in St. Louis and we came home a day early because Lauri said, 'We might lose him, you need to get home, get your stuff together and get out there,'" Nisbet said.
Soete held on, though, and by Week Two in the hospital his red blood counts were rising and he was starting to improve. He was still weak and dehydrated, though, because his body wasn't making electrolytes. Nisbet remembers calling and asking a nurse, not long after the July 4th holiday, if she knew how much longer Steve would be in the hospital.
Because as long as he was there, his family knew where he was and that he was safe.
"She said he probably won't be able to go home for a week, week-and-a-half. I said, 'You realize he doesn't have a home, right?'" Nisbet said.
The nurse said the hospital was aware, but that they had social workers who would connect Soete with a nonprofit respite care program, Ascending to Health, where he could recover. The Colorado Springs nonprofit has long been the go-to agency for homeless residents who are recovering from major illnesses and hospital stays.
"I called Lauri and told her what the nurse said, and that made us feel better, knowing he wasn't being kicked out on the street, knowing he'd be going to a rehab place," Nisbet said.
The next time she heard from her brother, he was out of the hospital — and back on the streets.
Soete told Kristy Milligan at Westside Cares that he'd been discharged from Memorial with a "theoretical referral to Ascending to Health," but was told he had to wait five days for a bed.
As of Sept. 1, phone lines at Ascending to Health were disconnected or not accepting messages, and attempts to reach the director and other staff by email were unsuccessful. Memorial Hospital was checking into whether its patient advocates were still actively referring homeless patients to the agency (and if so, how?).
When Soete returned to Westside Cares in the days after his discharge, it was obvious that he was very sick, weak and needed to be in a hospital or respite care, said Kristy Milligan. They alerted his family back in South Carolina. Nisbet asked for their help getting Steve a bed indoors, whether he wanted it or not.
"Steve finally called, and I said, 'You had me worried. They said you weren't looking too good, and not sounding too good. You're not drinking are you?" she asked.
Soete promised that he was not, he was on really strong medication. He wasn't smoking, either.
"I think all the prayers from y'all pulled me through this, and I'm going to get stronger," he told his sister. "I really want to get healthy and I want to get stronger and I want to come home, and I want to see you and I want to hug all of you."
"I'm not sure why he didn't go, but Kristy tells me he didn't make it to the appointment," Nisbet said. "He did go to Westside Cares, they gave him a snack. He gave them his phone and said would you please charge this, I have to call my 'Baby Sis.' While they were charging his phone, I guess. He died."
It broke Nisbet's heart to think of Soete dying as he had lived — alone, among strangers.
But, as she and her siblings soon learned, that isn't how their "Big Bro" had lived at all. Even though he'd been on the streets, he had a community he loved, that loved him back, and that is deeply mourning his death.
Steve Soete's sisters Lisa Nisbet, left, Lauri Bertsche, Karen Gawinski, light blue shirt, and brother Greg Soete, right, listen to Kristy Milligan, chief executive officer at Westside Cares, during a memorial service in Vermijo Park for their brother who died homeless on the streets of Colorado Springs July 20, 2021. Soete's siblings traveled from South Carolina to attend the memorial and meet the people in Colorado who loved him. (The Gazette, Christian Murdock)
Each year, Kristy Milligan organizes several memorial services for the homeless neighbors of Westside Cares. They are one of the saddest and most important things her organization does, she said.
"It's not an advertised service and not something we like to do, but it's something that's really important for the community," Milligan said.
Soete's memorial on August 30 in Vermijo Park was unlike most of the ones she'd ever helped organize. Nisbet, Bertsche, their sister Karen and brother Greg flew out last week to attend.
"A lot of times the family will insist on a service and insist that nobody from Westside Cares or from their other life come. Sometimes there are no services whatsoever," Milligan said. "This is just a really special thing to be able to do, to work so closely with the family to remember Steve's life."
Chris and Deb Mitguard play a song during the memorial service for Steve Soete at Vermijo Park in Colorado Springs Monday, Aug. 30, 2021. Soete died homeless July 20, 2021. (The Gazette, Christian Murdock)
Nisbet said that seeing the love that surrounded Steve in his adopted hometown forced her to rewrite some of the stories she'd created in her head, about a brother she hadn't seen in 13 years and who always painted a rosy picture of the lifestyle that was killing him.
"He had wonderful people around him, people who loved him, and that just warms my heart. He made a family here at Westside Cares, and we're so grateful for that," she said. "He did have a place that was like a home to him … and I guess he went home to die."
Source: https://gazette.com/news/community-family-mourn-homeless-man-who-died-on-sidewalk-next-to-busy-colorado-springs-street/article_96f5ad8e-0698-11ec-9d74-5b11886f17bb.html
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