His was an imperfect life.

Born to an alcoholic, he became one. Half his siblings grew up in foster care. He grew up in a residential center for troubled children, placed there when he was 3, and not released until he was 16. As an adult, he was an absentee father, in and out of jail so often he got married there. Burglaries fed a drug addiction, which led to divorce.

He was a familiar face at homeless shelters, and in recent months lived underground, pitching a tent in the abandoned subway tunnel downtown. He remained connected to his daughters, and — having stayed out of trouble the past seven years — was building a relationship with his eight grandchildren. And he was in a relationship himself, even said to be engaged.

Robert "Bobby" Burrows died Sept. 10 in Washington Square Park.

He was 49.

"My dad may not have been the best person," said Amandia Youngs, 32, during a memorial service that drew more than 120 people to the park this past week. "In the end, he tried to do better."

Burrows' name joins an ever-growing list of homeless lost. Roughly a dozen names are added each year, and remembered during an ecumenical service held each June. Most live longer than Burrows, but not by much. He would have turned 50 on Oct. 6. The average age of death for homeless men in Monroe County is 55, while for women it is 42, according to a study last year by Nazareth College sociology professor Harry Murray.

That is in line with studies elsewhere that have found homelessness shaves two decades or more from a person's life expectancy.

Homeless advocates have pointed to Burrows' death when talking about an often-dehumanized, at-risk population, where services can be difficult to access, and benefits too easily suspended.

"There were times when he wanted help and couldn't get it," said Ryan Acuff, a homeless and low-income housing advocate who knew Burrows through St. Joseph's House of Hospitality shelter and took him to a walk-in treatment center more than once, only to encounter a wait list. "I get it. You can't get treatment on demand. There aren't enough beds."

'Back to back'

The memorial was an informal affair.

A small table at the base of the park's Civil War memorial held flowers, candles and a loudspeaker so the service could be heard over the South Clinton Avenue traffic. The microphone passed between his family and street family.

They recalled his great heart and his tired soul; his struggles and his kindness. A ragtag gospel choir sang, "Be Not Afraid."

"There are others who died in these parks and streets that this community intended us not to take time to remember," said Minister Clifford Florence Sr., who officiated at the service.

County officials say Burrows is an example of the challenging intersection between mental health, substance abuse and housing. He checked into a county-supported homeless shelter on 13 separate occasions since 2008, records show, and was placed in a fully subsidized apartment on Waverly Place in December 2014 — only to walk away from the unit sometime in the next 18 months.

The apartment was paid through a federal program operated by the county in collaboration with the Rochester Housing Authority. Participants typically have a history of homelessness and a physical or mental health disability. There are no work requirements. RHA canceled the subsidy in July 2016, and had no further contacts with Burrows. The last time he checked into a county-supported shelter was in October.

"Our records reflect he was never sanctioned for temporary assistance or emergency housing," county spokesman Jesse Sleezer said — a remarkable achievement given his addictions and challenges, and the decade-long period of interaction.

Friends said he was conflicted, not wanting to be homeless, but wanting to be free from the trappings of a more structured life. He often told Acuff he desperately wanted housing but, according to the county, declined shelter placement 10 times in three months during the winter of 2017. Sleezer said Burrows likely remained eligible for aid but "wouldn’t take any of our outreach personnel up on our offer."

"His outcome, his death, could not have been prevented," Sleezer said.

Kurt Specksgoor can't hear that right now. He is living with regret.

"I just don't understand what the hell happened to him," he said of his good friend. "I would have done something. I would have been with him."

Would have, had Specksgoor not been in the hospital.

He fell some months back, dropping into the old subway, and crawled, before Burrows helped drag him, to their camp: a spacious eight-man tent with a fire pit where Burrows often used his boot like a kooze — or as he called it, a "shoe boot" — to steady his beer. Outreach workers arrived the next day, Specksgoor said, others say it was three days later, and summoned an ambulance. He needed three surgeries to fix his hip.

He was released from the hospital the day of the memorial. During the service, he stood outside the gathering, hand to his mouth, his face streaked with tears.

"Bobby and I have been around for a decade. We did bottle runs. We did everything. We were friends," he said, who watched out for each other. "Back to back."

Burrows watched out for many. When a team of social service and ecumenical outreach workers made the rounds once a month, offering a night's stay at the Motel 6 by the airport, Burrows would be waiting, "and he would meet us to tell us where other homeless people were. He was concerned about the women, people who were sick," said Deacon David Palma of St. Mary Catholic Church. "He had a great heart."

Elsewhere in the crowd was Tina Burrows, his ex-wife. They met when they were 9, became fast friends and, ultimately, much more. But they had not spoken since the divorce in 2002. She kept up on him through his daughters. At the memorial, she was stoic.

"You could always go to him. You could always talk to him," she said, but there was always the addiction. "The disease took him over. ... We just couldn't be together."

She wasn't the only one.

"I was definitely a daddy’s girl, that’s for sure," said Brandi Burrows, the youngest of his daughters from different mothers. "And one day he just changed. He wasn’t around no more. He got put in jail."

She was 9. He later tattooed her name on his chest, she said. But by then they had stopped talking. Her grandma died after he went to jail, and she blamed him. They never fully reconciled. She didn't know he was homeless, though she suspected. Now 28 with three daughters of her own, her focus was on her family. But she came to the service.

"I didn’t get a chance to meet the Bobby who was loved by all these people," she said.

'Demons got into him'

There is, as yet, no cause of death for Burrows. He recently had suffered a stroke, family members said. He had injured his hand climbing in and out of the aqueduct. County records showed he had a torn rotator cuff. Family and friends said he had hepatitis C and possible indicators for multiple sclerosis.

When Youngs' boyfriend Patrick Flanagan saw him outside the downtown transit center about 4 p.m. Sept. 10, "he had a glow to him." Youngs had been worried about her father, so Flanagan snapped a picture. In it, Burrows is smiling, arms outstretched.

Some 3½ hours later, he sat alone at a picnic table, head down, unresponsive.

That was how Allison Dentinger found him. She runs Supports on the Streets outreach, and the park was her second stop of the evening.

"We get over there, and I can see that someone appears to be sleeping at the table," she said. "It's only 7:30, so there's no problem waking them. I yelled, 'Outreach. Food," and no one moved. I yelled closer. It kind of became apparent at that point that he wasn't breathing."

Paramedics arrived, lifted him to the ground and worked to revive him for what seemed like a half hour. She called James Murphy from St. Joe's, and together they prayed. But it wasn't until the EMTs stepped away that they saw the man clearly and recognized Burrows' face. There was shock, and the days since have been difficult, both said, personally and for the community that knew him.

"He was definitely one of those, if you wanted to talk to him he was very willing to talk to you," Dentinger said. "People would come out for a one-off visit to the streets. Every time he was really, really open. He would want to sit down and have a 45-minute conversation ... not asking for anything, just wanting to enjoy the people he was with, which isn't often what you see on the streets. People are frustrated."

The night he died, he was expected at his girlfriend Anna Dalessandro's apartment at Andrews Terrace.

"We were planning on getting married soon, real soon," she said, touching a silver band she wore on a chain around her neck. "He was my love. He's resting now."

The memorial was wrapping up. Soon the people would disperse. The park would return to normal, and the homeless would gather again around the picnic tables, one of which is now inscribed with Bobby's name. There will be no traditional funeral. The family had his remains cremated. The memorial was the funeral.

"My brother was an amazing kid when we was growing up," said his older sister Jessie Burrows, with whom Bobby lived at times but would never stay. "Unfortunately nowhere that boy would place himself could keep him grounded for long. He scattered from here to there.

"He was a wonderful man. It is just that the demons got into him."

BDSHARP@Gannett.com