by Caroline Gabsewics
Staff Writer
Dwight Buckingham was living the good life. He was a successful businessman with the corporate job, but he had a group of friends that were telling him to loosen up and give up that suit and tie kind of job. That is where he made the mistake that would later change his life forever.
Buckingham has been through a lot since 2001 when he made that bad decision to give up on his job and listen to his friends. Buckingham found himself living at the I.M. Sulzbacher Center for the Homeless for two and a half years and with the help from the center, he turned his life around.
Buckingham will tell his story to a packed audience at the Florida Theatre Thursday night during the center’s annual fundraiser, “Transformations.”
The good life to homelessness
Buckingham helped his brother move from Tennessee to Jacksonville in 1987 and never went back. His brother was moving to Jacksonville to be a chef at the then new Marriott Hotel in Southpoint.
“I came here to help move my brother and that same day I also got a job at the Marriott as a banquet houseman,” said Buckingham. “I was employee of the month after the first month. I then became the audio/video manager.”
Years later in 2001, Buckingham became involved with drugs and soon became homeless. He was living in his car and moved his car every night from gas station to gas station to sleep in his car in the parking lots.
Buckingham had no income coming in and was looking for ways to make money. A garden nursery and a gas station both provided Buckingham with the opportunity to make a little bit of money to buy just enough food for himself. At the gas station he started by cleaning up the parking lot and the bathrooms. Everyone at the gas station including the district manager liked the work he was doing and offered him a job stocking the shelves and later he became a cashier. Because of how well he did, Buckingham was asked to attend management training to become a manager at the gas station. His days of working at the nursery, the gas station and living out of his car stopped there.
The accident
In 2002, while Buckingham was working at the garden nursery and at the gas station, he was actively abusing crack/cocaine, he said. One week prior to entering management training, Buckingham was in a serious car accident.
“I was life flighted to Shands and I spent eight months there recovering,” he said. “I was paralyzed from the waist down.”
During those long eight months the doctors never knew if he would be able to walk again. Buckingham said when he awoke in his hospital room all he could think about was if he had killed someone in the car accident.
“When I woke up in the hospital I knew my addiction to drugs was finished,” he said. “I laid there wondering if I had killed someone or endangered someone’s life.
“I knew right then that I had crossed the line. I could have said ‘no’.”
While he was at Shands recovering, Buckingham knew he was homeless. He was worried about what he was going to do and where he was going to live once he was able to leave the hospital.
“I thought about going back to Tennessee, but I didn’t want to be a burden on my family,” he said. “A friend of mine, John came to visit me while I was in the hospital. He knew of a place for me to stay and that is when he introduced the Sulzbacher Center to me.”
Buckingham had heard of the Sulzbacher Center before and he always had this stereotype in his mind that went with the name. What he didn’t know was how they helped those who were less fortunate, like himself at the time.
When Buckingham got the “OK” to leave Shands, they took him to the Sulzbacher Center in an ambulance.
Life at the Sulzbacher Center
“They welcomed me at the Sulzbacher Center and I went through orientation,” he said. “They gave me a case manager and they started assessing my life with me.”
One of the requirements at the Sulzbacher Center is to attend substance abuse counseling, he said. Buckingham began attending Narcotics Anonymous (NA).
“I was using crack/cocaine when I had the car wreck,” he said. “And at first I wasn’t honest with the people at the Sulzbacher Center about my drug addiction.
“But I came around because I knew I had to get honest with myself to help myself.”
Buckingham was told to attend 90 NA meetings in 90 days. Not only did the center help him with his addiction, the doctors and nurses also helped him physically.
“My physical condition when I arrived there was very bad and I needed a lot of attention,” he said. “They (the doctors and nurses) gave me excellent care.”
Buckingham was in a wheelchair for a year and a half. He began making progress and started using a walker, then crutches and later a cane. Two years into the program Buckingham’s case manager approached him and asked if he was close to getting ready to go out on his own. He felt he was ready and they put him on the “Homeward Bound” program where they are set up in an apartment on their own. Since Buckingham was disabled, the Sulzbacher Center also helped him apply for disability.
“I got it the first time I applied,” said Buckingham.
When Buckingham first got to the Sulzbacher Center he didn’t know what the future held for him.
“It was very challenging. It was the first time I was homeless and living in a homeless facility,” he said. “You had to learn to associate with all types of people and adapt to a different type of environment.”
Buckingham had to become used to sleeping in a room full of 300 other males, he said, and added that at times it was hard to find peace.
“I found peace in reading and keeping myself occupied,” he said. “I knew my only other choice was to be on the streets. The Sulzbacher Center was a blessing.
“I knew I had a place to eat, sleep and I didn’t have to worry, because I knew I was in a safe place.”
Even though the staff at the Sulzbacher Center were there to help him, he knew to really help himself he needed to do it on his own.
“I knew they had everything I needed to make that transition back into society, but it was up to me to take advantage of it,” said Buckingham.
Buckingham’s new life
Buckingham spent two and a half years at the Sulzbacher Center and left in 2005. It was right around the time Super Bowl XXXIX was coming to Jacksonville.
“I was riding the bus and we were on Hendricks Avenue and something told me to get off the bus,” he said. “I thought about parking cars and I went around asking businesses if I could park cars in their lots.
“I had a contract for about eight parking lots that I was able to work during the Super Bowl.”
Once the Super Bowl was over, Buckingham was then looking for another way to earn a living. He began picking up used furniture and decorative antiques that people had along their curb to be thrown away.
“I was out in front of this man’s home where there were a few things sitting on the curb,” he said. “The man came out and said there was more stuff in the house.
“It was a win-win situation. I cleaned out the man’s house for him and it got me started on a new business.”
By the beginning of this year he had five 10X20 storage spaces full of antiques and clothing. Buckingham knew a woman, Claudette who owned $1 Thrift and More on Beach Boulevard. Buckingham took a chance and went in and asked if she would like to partner with him and open a thrift store together.
Claudette said it was a perfect fit, because they had the same vision.
“We came to an agreement and we opened House of Transition,” said Buckingham. “I wanted to create a revenue for myself to move forward in life. Disability gives you enough to pay rent and buy food.
“But I wanted to make enough to get off of disability. I want to be a productive citizen in society again.”
Claudette and Buckingham opened House of Transition on Beach Boulevard on Feb. 6. The community thrift store has everything from clothing to antique furniture and collectables. But one of their main missions is to work with other non-profit organizations to create after school programs for children at risk.
“We want to network with other organizations like the Sulzbacher Center,” he said. “It is only right for me to give back to the center.”
They have already donated clothing to the Sulzbacher Center, but they are looking forward to working with them more after Transformations is over.
“We are much more than a thrift store,” he said.
Buckingham said for heavy furniture or for help in the store they bring in volunteers from the WorkSource Program and from the Department of Juvenile Justice.
Aside from his day job Buckingham also said his family is now once again a very important part of his life.
“My family has been restored in my life,” he said. “After they saw the change in my life they started coming back around. I have a beautiful relationship with my family.”
His family and friends will be at Transformations Thursday night. He said they are looking forward to the event.
“I am really looking forward to being a part of Transformations,” he said. “I don’t know how else I could repay the Sulzbacher Center for all they have done for me.”
To Buckingham, attending Transformations as a person who made a “transformation” was a goal he wanted to complete.
“There haven’t been many goals that I have completed,” he said. “I didn’t just go through the process, I grew through the process.”
Buckingham had a stereotype of the Sulzbacher Center before he went there, and that has now changed.
“The Sulzbacher Center provides a great service to the community. It is a life line for those who are less fortunate,” he said. “My outlook on the homeless has totally changed. It (the center) is a way for people to truly get their life back together.”
Buckingham knew if he wasn’t willing to let go, he would be a burden on society.
“I never had any doubts,” he said. “I knew where I was before and I didn’t want to go back.”