On a sunny January day, Dan, 58, and Robert, 60, worked together on the CSS Maintenance Crew doing restoration work at the Empire Pond Safe Spot Community. Another typical workday for both of them in some ways, but one that neither could have imagined just a year and a half ago. Dan and Robert are brothers who had not seen each other for 17 years before an extraordinary, totally unexpected reunion at the CSS Mission Microsite Community in September 2024. Now they both live at that site, are CSS staff members, and share stories of parallel progress.
Dan has lived in CSS communities for about three and a half years; Robert about two and a half years. Dan had been living in the Mission Microsite for about two years when Robert showed up there, moving from the CSS Expressway community.
“The CSS workers brought me in to unload my stuff,” Robert says, “and there were a couple of people from the camp there and they were coming out to see who the new guy was. After a couple of seconds of standing there, they introduced me and then I just automatically knew it was my brother Dan. We just looked at each other, and I said, ‘oh, my God, my long-lost brother.’”
“I was stunned, speechless,” Dan says.
Robert had been looking for Dan for a long time, especially since he had come back to Eugene a few years ago, which was the last place he’d known Dan to be. Dan was in Eugene, where they both grew up, for more than 10 years before an undesirable living situation led to him living on the streets. He was on the streets for about a year and a half before getting into a Hut with CSS.
“I just hadn't seen him in a while," Robert says. “I didn't know what happened to him. He dropped off the face of the earth. I posted notes at the Department of Human Services because people are going through there all the time, but never had any luck. Honestly, I didn't think he was still around.”
“Everybody was looking for me,” Dan says, “even his (Robert’s) daughter” (who lives in Eugene).
“And the thing is,” Robert says, “I walked within 100 yards of him almost every day. I don't know how many times going back and forth to the park, to the stores, or to appointments. I had no idea he was right there.” The Mission CSS site is less than a half-hour walk from Expressway, where Robert lived before his move.
When they were first reunited, they say they took it slowly trying to rebuild their relationship. “We're not trying to move too fast. It's just too much to catch up on and with each having our own agendas,” Robert said at that time, “so, we're both maintaining our goals and our priorities.”
And that’s continued, Dan says. “It's been mellow. He does his thing. I do my thing. I work. Now, he's working.”
When they’re not too tired after their workdays, they get together to “watch movies, work on puzzles, build a fire, maybe have dinner,” Dan says.
And they support each other. When they first reunited Robert said that Dan called him “the motivator” helping him to focus on “getting himself prepped and ready to go back to work.” Now that Dan has his driver’s license and is working full-time, he is helping to motivate Robert to get his driver’s license so he can go from part-time to full-time on the Maintenance Crew.
