OPINION | After 20 years without teeth, Rick Davis begins the journey toward dental implants with a new friend
He was wearing a neon vest, offering her an umbrella and a greeting,
Gale Watson recalled how she first met long-time Street Roots vendor Rick Davis a year ago at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral.
She was trying to find an Episcopal congregation to join, and it was Rick’s kindness that made her realize she was, indeed, at her spiritual home.
Aware the street was busy and dangerous in front of the cathedral, Rick took it upon himself to don that safety vest and usher people. He sold Street Roots for years there — and continues to do so on Sundays — but Trinity also hired him to take care of its grounds and serve food to people, many of whom are homeless.
Rick's generosity is legendary inside our organization. He bakes cupcakes for vendors and staff. He shows up with his wagon and totes Rose City Resource guides around the city. He built a memorial to deceased vendors in our office.
In other words, the generosity Rick shows at Trinity echoes the generosity he shows at Street Roots, to his apartment neighbors and to people experiencing homelessness.
Rick has suffered plenty in his life, with the loss of his teeth among his plights. When he was 31 and had 11 teeth left, he had the remaining teeth pulled.
“Oh, it was horrible,” Rick said. “The worst pain of my life.”
It is common for people in poverty to have their teeth pulled, and it is for this reason that my own father had all his teeth pulled in his 20s. He survived the next and final 30 years of his life with dentures I remember glimpsing on his bedside table.
Pulling one’s teeth is the cheapest option and, therefore, the only option for people with few means. Despite the phrase “luxury bones,” teeth are not a luxury, and they are not bones.
It’s an extra cruel twist of poverty, then, that teeth do not regenerate as bones do. People lack dental care, nutrition and suffer traumas — and lose their teeth. Replacing them is difficult, expensive and painful.
In a 2018 study of people experiencing homelessness in Oakland, California, 57% of participants were missing at least half their teeth. In a London study the prior year, 15% of people pulled their own teeth out because dental pain was so severe.
Whether homeless or not, people in poverty suffer tooth loss at far higher rates than people with higher incomes and, thus, suffer the stigmas and additional health challenges of toothlessness, coping with impaired eating and speaking. Sounds are formed through a relationship between vocal cords, tongue, lips and teeth.
That means Rick, who is bright, expressive and witty, has to have many of his witticisms lost in communication. Rick spoke about health struggles with a glint of optimism and humor.
“I don’t feel a day over 52,” Rick, 51, said.
“He's an intelligent man, and he has wisdom to share and communicate,” Gale told me. “It's really important to him that people will understand him so much better when he's back to having a mouthful of teeth.”
After Rick had his teeth pulled 20 years ago, he was fitted incorrectly with dentures, causing him more pain. His late partner, Chris, grew exasperated Rick was not wearing them, threatening if Rick didn’t wear them, he’d snap them in half. Rick didn’t wear them, and Chris made good on his threat. He broke the teeth “like snapping a twig,” Rick told me.
His dentist super-glued the dentures back together. The repaired dentures were even more ill-fitted, and Rick ceased wearing them altogether.
Fast forward 20 years back to Trinity Episcopal Cathedral and Gale, who began thinking about what she could do when she realized Rick rarely took sandwiches because he couldn’t chew them. She wanted to anonymously gift Rick with dentures using funds left to her by her late husband, who died in a plane crash.
“I just am a conduit, and it came through a tragedy,” Gale explained to me.
Despite her own self-effacement, Gale realized this couldn’t be done anonymously because it had to be done through a relationship.
“I had to know that he wanted that because just because we want something for somebody doesn't mean they want it,” Gale said.
When asked, Rick’s response was straightforward: “Yes, I’ve wanted to do that all my life.”
“He said, ‘you just came into my life at the right time,’” Gale said. “And I said, ‘Well, you came into mine too, you know.’”
They figured out how to approach the challenge of replacing his teeth by building trust. Then, they went about researching.
“I've always thought research and learning is the way we can get rid of our anxiety and just make good decisions,” Gale said.
They visited an oral surgeon and an imaging center, both of whom took extra care because of how frightened Rick was.
The oral surgeon affixed several metal posts into his lower jaw, which will eventually host his dentures. After these implants heal in the coming months, he can return for the dentures. If this all works, they will attempt the top teeth.
Gale worked at the intersection of teeth and poverty before when she worked with students receiving mental health services as part of a public treatment program at Arizona State University. Some of these students lived on the streets.
“I knew how dental health is so important to your whole physical being,” Gale said.
What began as Gale noticing Rick might need something she could help with became something more: a friendship of reciprocity and mutual respect.
“Here’s this pretty sign that says, ‘Please remove your shoes before entering.’ Once you enter, he has little carpets,” Gale said of Rick’s apartment.
His walls are “covered with memorabilia, beautifully placed. And he really has a design ability. And it's just things that he cares about. You know, all positive things all over his walls. It's just really remarkable — his talent, the care he takes.”
Gales marvels at how Rick’s apartment reveals so much of the care he puts into everything — his work ethic and his relationships.
“Whatever I do today, it’s going to come back 10 times,” Rick tells me, and then adds, “Or maybe it won’t,” trailing off as if to say, ‘that’s okay too.’
Street Roots is an award-winning weekly investigative publication covering economic, environmental and social inequity. The newspaper is sold in Portland, Oregon, by people experiencing homelessness and/or extreme poverty as means of earning an income with dignity. Street Roots newspaper operates independently of Street Roots advocacy and is a part of the Street Roots organization. Learn more about Street Roots . Support your community newspaper by making a one-time or recurring gift today .
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