Richard Edward Stetson died Nov. 7; he was 67 years old. He is survived by his beloved dog, Dante. Born Feb.11, 1958, Stetson most recently hung out on the corner of 5th and Washington, according to his acquaintance Stan Pearson. “I really liked the guy; he was a straight-up guy,” Pearson says.
Stetson frequented breakfasts provided by Neighbors Feeding Neighbors, says Lisa Levsen, the group’s board president and lead organizer. She says he had a bad heart, and she brought him tuna fish to breakfast regularly. He’d help himself to five cups of coffee and thirds of breakfast.
“We loved him,” Levsen says. “And we will mourn him.”
Little is available about Stetson’s past, but he previously lived in Idaho and Montana. According to his friend Robert Hicks, Stetson was on the streets of Eugene for at least 10 years, and Oregon court records show violations — mostly for switched license plates and driving uninsured — dating back to 1990. Eugene Municipal Court records show recent charges of prohibited camping, criminal trespass and violation of park rules — the usual array of violations faced by people trying to survive on the streets.
He fiercely loved his dog, who has since been adopted by a local homeless advocate.
“He was a feisty old shit,” Tim Lewis says in a Nov. 8 memorial video he made of Stetson. Lewis is a longtime videographer who has recently been documenting Neighbors Feeding Neighbors and police interactions with the homeless community on his PictureEugene YouTube page.
Lewis says Stetson was always welcoming to his company and camera.
In a previous video Lewis posted Nov. 13, Stetson stands in Washington Jefferson Park with a cigarette and Dante nearby. He says to Lewis that he was almost run over by a cop and had to wrangle Dante. When he confronted the cop, as Stetson recounts it, the cop said: “Doesn’t matter, you’re homeless, no one cares about you, dude.”
“I’m a human, man,” Stetson responded. “I got rights.”
Stetson says in the video he shouldn’t be homeless or have to stay homeless, but struggles with Social Security had made it impossible to move out of his situation.
He hoped to go back to Montana someday.
He is survived by his ex-wife Jodiena Hammons and two children. Hammons says she met Stetson at the Eugene Mission before they moved to Idaho and then Montana. The couple had their first child, Jasmine, in Great Falls, and their second child, Adam, in Helena. The two were married for 13 ½ years, according to Hammons, with the marriage ending in divorce in 2015 and estrangement.
Hammons and their children were not aware that Stetson had passed until Eugene Weekly reached out.
“We don’t know the official medical cause of death yet, but being homeless in Eugene killed Richard Stetson,” Levsen says.
Sunset Hills Funeral Home handled Stetson’s funeral arrangements. Eugene Weekly seeks to write obituaries for those who die homeless in Lane County. Send information to Editor@EugeneWeekly.com.
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