CHICAGO — Three years ago, Everett Atkinson was a medical disaster waiting to happen.
The 6-foot-7 homeless man couldn't stand up long without his legs swelling severely. His heart was bad, his circulatory system damaged and his body giving out after years of alcoholism, drug abuse and neglect.
Help came from a doctor who had bought StreetWise magazine -- a Chicago enterprise designed to help men and women out of poverty -- from Atkinson for years.
When Dr. Allen Goldberg learned Atkinson had been thrown out of a flophouse because he couldn't pay the bill, the doctor offered him a chance to live in his building and rebuild his health.
"I had never met a person who had nothing before," said Goldberg, 66, a retired pediatrician.
Since the encounter, Atkinson has given the doctor insights -- for example, how African Americans in poor communities can distrust white doctors -- which Goldberg has used in his volunteer work in tough neighborhoods.
"He helps me understand a lot, because who knows better about being disadvantaged?" Goldberg said.
Atkinson, 57, traces his downward slide to when he found out at 18 that his parents had adopted him as an infant. His father had died eight years before; an only child, Atkinson was extremely attached to his mother, who passed away in 1973.
She "used to tell me: 'Whatever you do, Everett, tell the truth.' And then I found out she never told me the truth about who I was," he said.
Atkinson said his drinking and drug use started after he found his biological family, which was headed by an abusive father.
For a while, Atkinson said, he pulled himself together and became a salesman for a men's retail chain. After that he worked as a bouncer in Chicago clubs; he drank and used cocaine. In 2003, he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of battery and was sentenced to probation.
Goldberg and his wife, Evi, a retired anesthesiologist, also have known hardship. The doctor's father, a New York firefighter, was injured in the course of duty and the family had to live on his disability checks. Evi grew up in Germany after World War II, and her family was among the many displaced.
"So many homes were bombed, people would take you in," she said, remembering living on another family's farm. "So it didn't seem strange to think about doing that for someone here."
