By Melissa Wagoner
In the five years since Joe Keeton moved to Silverton at the behest of a friend, his face became known to many throughout the town including Sarah White, the executive director and founder of Sheltering Silverton.
“I met Joe in 2018 when we first opened up our Resource Center in the basement of the Community Center,” White said, describing the man she met as, “larger than life… a very gregarious, intelligent, creative, wild, unpredictable, volatile person. Very deeply empathetic.”
And, although Joe was a client, first and foremost, he quickly became a friend.
“I don’t think you can spend as much time with people in their really hard moments and not become a friend to them,” White said, recalling music-filled car rides and long conversations during which she got to know Joe in a way that enabled her to see beyond his struggles with mental illness, homelessness and addiction to the person underneath.
“I think that the people who took the time to get to know Joe when he was in a good frame of mind saw this really complex, intelligent, thoughtful, empathetic person…” White said. “This guy wasn’t just a deadbeat loser – there’s this impression that homeless folks aren’t talented, that they’re lazy – he was the opposite of all those things.”
It’s an opinion Joe’s younger sister, Autumn Keeton, shares in her memories of him as a young man.
“He loved music and drama and was sure he was destined for Hollywood,” she recalled. “He was a dreamer with the charisma to charm the pants off anyone.”
But Joe’s childhood was challenging.
“[H]e moved a lot,” Autumn explained, “back and forth between his mom and our family, every time things would get tough with my dad, or he would start to miss his mom, he would move back with her to New York City, and all the other places she took him.”
But it wasn’t just the travel that made life difficult, Autumn believes Joe’s biological mother suffered from a mental illness as well, recalling times when she would experience a “mental break” while Joe was living with her, subsequently sending him back to live with his dad.
“My dad never thought this was good for him but had little luck keeping him with us for an extended period…” Autumn recalled. Adding, “having such an unstable childhood, never really knowing where you belonged, I know made Joe feel like he had some type of void. He loved his mom so much, and with her sending him off so many times, that must be devastating for a boy, just trying to fit in this world.”
And life in his dad’s house wasn’t much easier.
“[M]y dad spent a lot of his energy trying to keep Joe safe and off drugs,” Autumn said. “He was constantly yelling and arguing with him about smoking pot and how to fly straight… like many men, my dad never really knew how to show his love easily.”
Troubled at home and – it is speculated – struggling with ADHD and the beginning stages of bipolar disorder, Joe began to self-medicate, using marijuana and other drugs to get by. Then, through a family member, he found God.
“They started going to Church of the Open Bible together,” Autumn recalled. “Joe turned way religious, started preaching the word of God at fairs and festivals…”
He got clean, met a girl named Alex, married her and became a father to his first daughter, Kansas. Then the entire family moved to Eugene where Joe attended the Eugene Bible College, graduating with a 3.7 GPA and becoming a pastor.
“He was such a good Pastor, inspirational, someone who had risen from addiction and the trenches to find God,” Autumn said. “By this time, he and Alex had brought all three girls into the world.”
And at first Joe was a good father.
“He taught me how to ride a bike and wouldn’t let me give up,” Kansas recalled. “I wanted to, but he kept telling me ‘You can do it, you can do it’ and when I had finally pushed through… he was so excited for me he jumped up and down and yelled my name… which made me feel so proud and loved.”
But then he injured his back and – prescribed opioid medication for the pain – all his previous, self-medicating tendencies came roaring back.
“[M]y dad started acting really weird,” Kansas remembered. “He would ‘sleep’ on the couch all day, which I later learned was ‘the nods’ from [opioids]. When he ‘woke’ up he was often in a very bad mood, and he treated me poorly. I never knew when Mean Dad was going to show up and when Loving Dad was going to show up.”
Depressed and fed up with religion, Joe quit his job as a pastor, choosing instead to focus on his love of movies.
“Joe went to Regent University and got a Masters in Filmmaking,” Autumn said. “He made a short film called Strike the Record that he was very proud of…”
And then his addiction took hold.
“He was very scary,” Kansas said, recalling the time when her father was at his lowest, “and then by my 13th birthday, he was gone.”
Joe’s relationship with his family disintegrated in the following years – especially between him and his father – but he did keep in touch.
“I saw him a handful of times over the next two decades,” Kansas said, “each time less sane sounding and more deteriorated. He tried so many times to get sober. Attended so many rehabs, some were the strictest in the country. His mental illnesses progressed and soon he was homeless and turning to petty crime. He was in and out of jails and institutions…”
And yet, he was still Joe, “a small man with a giant spirit,” befriending those in his new hometown.
“He was the first unhoused person to befriend me and I’m really grateful for that…” Pastor John Friedrick, said, recalling Joe’s tendency to drop by Oak Street Church for a chat.
“Sometimes he just wanted someone to talk to,” Friedrick said. “Sometimes he needed something to eat. Sometimes he would come talk because he was frustrated with how he’d been treated… Joe liked to talk about his family and things he’d been thinking about, things he’d observed. He was a spiritual man who liked to share insights on God, love and the nature of the universe. Sometimes he’d show up blasting music from a boombox, simply enjoying some songs.”
But, even with Friedrick’s friendship and Sheltering Silverton’s continued support, life was difficult for Joe.
“[H]e really was succumbing to a combination of mental illness and addiction…” White said. “He desperately wanted treatment. I put more hours into getting treatment for Joe than anyone else I’ve worked with. But what we found was a completely broken system… he was one of the best-case studies on how our system fails people who have dual diagnosis.
“What we see is so often are people have either inherited mental illness, neurodivergence or intellectual disability and trauma on top of that, and then they don’t get the treatment for existing conditions, so they’re highly susceptible to addiction.”
“It’s a vicious cycle in which addiction often renders those struggling to cope with mental health issues ineligible for the very treatment they desperately need.
“When we would take him to a treatment facility for mental health they would say, your drug use is the problem,” White said.
And so, Joe struggled until, in March, he returned to Bend – where he had also spent time living on the streets.
“I got a call… from Stacey Witte, a caseworker who had worked with Joe for many years,” White remembered. “And she told me what happened.”
The story she related is a chilling one. In the early morning hours of July 19 Joe – who had been living in a homeless encampment on Juniper Ridge had been attacked and killed by three pit bull/bull mastiff dogs.
“I think people should understand how harrowing the lives of people who experience homelessness are,” White said. “It just shows you how vulnerable people are in these remote camps, where there isn’t a rule of law and services don’t go very often.”
“He never ever should’ve been so vulnerable as to be mauled to death by pit bulls,” Kansas echoed. “I really believe our healthcare system, our judicial system, the lack of community in our country failed my dad.”
But, even in their grief, neither Kansas nor Autumn felt that way about the care Joe received in Silverton.
“I knew there were angels looking out for him… because they had contacted me asking questions, trying to piece together Joe and get him services,” Autumn said. “So, I knew he had advocates…”
What she didn’t know was how deep their affection for Joe went.
“We were going to do a memorial for our own community…” White said. “We think that it’s really important to talk about loss and death and to really honor the people we lose. And we lose a lot of people. Homeless people die, on average, 20 years sooner than other people. So, we’ve lost a lot of people way too young…”
It was just going to be a small ceremony but then… “Joe’s family started reaching out to me…and they said, we’re coming to this memorial. And they chose to have him buried in Silverton because this was a place he was loved.”
And so, in just nine days. Joe’s family – including all three of his daughters, a few grandchildren, his step-mother and his younger sisters – flew from around the world – thanks in part to a donation from the congregation of Oak Street Church – to attend Joe’s service.
“The tragic way in which Joe died was horrific,” Autumn said, “but the town of Silverton and people in it, made the grieving bearable and made our family whole again. So many people spoke at the service about their interactions with Joe, and their love for him. I learned that he was not just a homeless or houseless soul, but that he had friends who loved him and a place that cared for him…”
But did Joe, prior to his death, see it that way?
It’s impossible to know, but White, when asked her opinion, put it this way, “I think he would have been surprised at how tender people were, because the world wasn’t very tender to Joe.
