Santa Rosa man’s once-bright life cut short on city streets

The last time Josh Clark visited his mother in Marin County, he passed up the couch and chose to sleep on the floor.

The 37-year-old graduate of UC San Diego had been living on the streets of Santa Rosa off and on since at least October, visiting his mother every few months to eat, shower and talk.

With an entrenched all-day drinking habit and several failed attempts at rehab, Clark's life had drastically changed course since 2010. Raised in San Rafael and Mill Valley and educated at Waldorf-style schools, he was charismatic, intelligent and kind. He had a political science degree. He had a 9-year-old daughter and an ex-wife.

He also had places to stay, and friends and relatives to help him. But he ultimately chose Taaka brand vodka over everything else.

On May 21, Clark suffered fatal brain injuries when he was attacked, his head repeatedly bashed into the hard ground at Rae Park, a narrow strip of grass across the street from Santa Rosa City Hall. He lived and died a stone's throw from where elected officials are considering declaring a state of emergency over homelessness in the city.

Josh Clark had not been homeless long. The man accused in the beating was homeless, too, and just 20 years old.

There are nearly 3,000 homeless people in Sonoma County. They sleep in shelters and cars, in makeshift camps under trees, on thin cardboard over cold sidewalks.

In downtown Santa Rosa, the homeless are so visible, people assume their numbers are rising, even though official tallies count fewer people living on the street over the past five years. They are seen and unseen, nameless, even faceless, their belongings rolled up in disheveled heaps.

An unprecedented number have suffered violent deaths in Santa Rosa this year. Of five homicides, three of the victims were living on the streets. They were shot, beaten and stabbed.

Homeless outreach workers knew Clark. They usually saw him at the portable showers set up at City Hall for people to wash and get new clothes.

He had refused offers of help before, but just weeks before he died he told an outreach worker he was interested in learning how they could assist him, said Jennielynn Holmes, Catholic Charities director of shelter and housing.

'For some people, it takes building a relationship,' said Holmes. 'He had just started to express some interest.'

Holmes said getting people off the streets is an essential first step in addressing circumstances like lost jobs, addictions, mental illnesses and bad luck.

'Lay your head on the sidewalk, you already feel so vulnerable and exposed,' Holmes said.

Santa Rosa Police Lt. John Cregan said the city is assigning more officers to patrol downtown. They're investigating more confrontations, violence and thefts involving transients. Cregan said he talks with homeless advocates and service providers almost daily to try and help solve problems and direct people to services.

'When incidents occur in our community, that raises tension in the community and could result in more violence,' Cregan said.

People become stressed and fearful. Rumors fly. That has the potential to spark more violence as people are on edge to defend themselves.

'He was the party'

Clark's death brought his life as one of the downtown's homeless into focus.

Born in San Rafael in 1979 to Susan Radelt and Kim Clark, a contractor who now lives in Port Townsend, Washington, his childhood was spent in 'lovely neighborhoods and lovely homes,' according to his mother, including a 19-room Marin County house, with two brothers and two sisters. There were family trips to India and Mexico and a tight-knit high school scene at Tamalpais High School.

He and his high school girlfriend went backpacking in Europe and eventually moved to San Diego to live by the beach. They started classes at San Diego Mesa College and then transferred to UC San Diego. His warmth and charm earned him the nickname Mr. Mayor, and he graduated with a political science degree in 2005.

At 25, he married and he and his wife had their daughter two years later and moved to Petaluma.

'He was really smart, really funny and an incredibly fun guy,' said his ex-wife, Erin Clark of Mill Valley. 'He was the party, and that was fine in college, but at a certain point he didn't stop.'

Clark became deeply depressed after their daughter was born, and his wife supported the family while he faltered at a career. A general contractor by trade, Clark also tried to start medical marijuana ventures, and at one point ran Sonoma Cannabis Caregivers, a pot delivery service. His businesses never took off.

'It was only more obvious as most of our peers were marrying, having kids, having jobs and having success in those areas, whereas Josh was not moving forward,' Erin Clark said.

Clark drank openly at home. At some point it started each morning, on the couch with beers or mini wine bottles.

In 2010, she moved out with their daughter. Clark eventually moved in with his mother and had weekend visits with his daughter. For three years, Radelt, his mother, watched him try to quit drinking. Sober, her son would brighten with aspirations, and dreams of guiding his daughter. Then he'd drink, and his personality dimmed, his emotions dulled.

On an August night in 2013, he was pulled over on Sir Francis Drake Boulevard about five miles from Highway 1. A CHP officer had watched him repeatedly swerve across the road. His blood-alcohol level was nearly four times the legal limit, according to the CHP.

His 1987 Jeep Cherokee was towed. Until that point, he'd cobbled together work on residential renovations and other projects. He ended up donating the Jeep after the DUI charge.

The details of his troubles are less clear from there.

His brother, Damon Clark, tried to step in after Josh ended up in San Francisco. Damon put him in a rehab program at the city's St. Anthony's Foundation.

After that, friends and family pooled their money. He lived at the Salvation Army's Lytton Springs treatment program near Healdsburg for nearly a year.

He got out and came to Santa Rosa. He sometimes stayed with an old friend. He befriended a Marin bass player and drove her to gigs and the airport. Selling marijuana was an intermittent source of cash, as it had been for years.

Park becomes hangout

Sometime around October of last year, Clark joined a loose band of friends living at Rae Park on Sonoma Avenue. The park's iconic stone statues, the Grandfathers, were gifted from a South Korea city to ward off evil spirits.

Upbeat, smart and generous, Clark made friends easily, as he always had.

'Everyone knows Josh,' said Lexi Murphy, a 20-year-old woman with blond dreadlocks and freckles who had become close with Clark at Rae Park.

Clark spent his days on the move. First thing, he'd make the rounds in the park, checking the welfare of everyone in their group. His first meal of the day was usually lunch at the Redwood Gospel Mission because it's hard for alcoholics to eat in the morning, she said.

'I honestly think he spent half his day trying to figure out how to help everyone,' Murphy said.

Clark gave things away, like the red Pashmina shawl his mother hoped would keep him warm. She bought him a bike, but he gave it to somebody else.

Radelt said her son seemed to find purpose over the last seven months of his life. He'd stop to talk with a woman without shoes, and then buy her a pair. He'd sleep near a man with nightmares. He told his mother he was devastated after finding an elderly man's body near the train tracks.

Another Rae Park friend, Kyle Isom, 26, has been homeless off and on for seven years. Isom said Clark brought a new vibe to the park when he arrived last fall. Things felt light, people were more generous with one another.

He said he tried to teach Clark to be more selfish, telling him 'you have to keep your clothes, your money for yourself.'

'I was trying to teach him to fend for himself,' said Isom, who keeps newspaper clippings about Clark's death in his backpack. 'But he was teaching me how to be good to people.'

Defenseless and drunk

Clark had given Thomas 'TJ' Borbeck about a pound of marijuana shake — leftover trimmings — sometime during the spring, according to Murphy and other witnesses to his death. Borbeck, they said, promised to make it into hash oil and give Clark some of the profits.

But the hash oil or its cash profits never appeared. On May 21 at Rae Park, Borbeck asked Clark for more pot, according to several witnesses. Clark said no, saying something along the lines of not wanting to deal with 'a stupid kid,' according to Murphy and others. Clark walked away and headed to Sam's Market on South E Street.

Sometime before 9:20 p.m., Clark walked back through the park. Police said Borbeck attacked him with punches that knocked him to the ground. Clark's body showed no defensive wounds, police said. He never threw a punch.

Borbeck was arrested shortly after the fight.

'Josh was drunk,' Murphy said. 'It was an unfair fight. He was defenseless.'

Isom said he was nearby but had passed out and slept through the whole thing. And it haunts him.

A neurosurgeon told Clark's family his head injuries were so extensive it appeared as if there'd been multiple attackers.

Five days later, in a Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital room, Damon Clark held his brother's hand while medical staff gave an official time of death: 1:27 p.m., May 26.

Older by just over a year, Damon took a photograph at that moment, of brothers' fingers entwined, an act of protest against the notion his brother had been just another homeless man in Santa Rosa.

The police kept 'mentioning how many homeless people there are in Santa Rosa, as if it would erase some of the sadness that there is this much violence in a peaceful community,' said their younger sister, Lynsey Clark, of Oakland.

'More than a tragedy'

Damon Clark went to the Sonoma County Jail to meet the man accused of killing his brother. He ended up in the visitors' line next to Borbeck's cousin. The two men talked, and visited Borbeck together. Both men said they left the jail that day knowing two families were grieving.

'I spoke to (Borbeck's) mom, too. She spent the whole time crying,' Damon Clark said. 'I felt her pain. I just listened.'

Borbeck declined an interview from jail, where he's being held on a murder charge without bail.

In an interview, his mother, Susan Borbeck, said he grew up in Redwood City. She said her son was 13 years old when his father, who was homeless, was found beaten to death outside a San Jose floral shop in the landscaping area where he often slept.

Borbeck spent time in juvenile hall and group homes but was unceremoniously kicked out at age 18, without skills or resources.

He lived with a cousin in Santa Rosa and finished high school. In October, he worked at Arby's and around that time he started living on the streets with a girlfriend. His mother, who still lives in Redwood City, said she tried to help him. She said her son is baby-faced and slightly built, and she doesn't believe he could kill someone.

'I feel for Josh's family and I know my son does, too,' Susan Borbeck said.

Clark's memorial service was held June 12 in Mill Valley. About 200 people filled several sections of pews through the lava rock and redwood entrance beneath the copper spire of Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church.

Radelt said strangers came up to her and said they'd traveled from Southern California, from New Mexico and other places to attend. A woman said she flew into town for the service because she'll never forget how in high school Clark introduced her around when she moved to town, and a new school.

'This was not your ordinary human being,' Radelt said.

When police announced Clark's death, the headline of a Santa Rosa homeless man being fatally beaten anguished those who knew him. The word homeless seemed to whittle 37 years of life down to nothing.

'I want it to be more than a tragedy, to make a difference, to be a lesson, and that's what I'm trying to figure out,' Damon Clark said. 'What do we take away from this?'

You can reach Staff Writer Julie Johnson at 707-521-5220 or julie.johnson@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @jjpressdem.