The Homeless Interviews #8

Think homelessness is something that happens to bad people? Abusers? Poor people? Could never happen to you because you have a steady income, an education, money in the bank? Stop and think for a minute. If you lost your income today, how long could you live on what you have in the bank? Where would you go? Who do you have for help? Could you simply get a job tomorrow and pick up where you left off? 

My next interview hit home hard.  "Carl" is a big man, over 6 feet tall with a deep voice and very sad eyes. I could tell he was hurting the first time we met just by looking at his face. He was dressed in clean jeans, work boots and a clean plaid shirt. He was unshaven, but not your "typical" homeless person.  His story knocked the reality square in my face. 

***Carl, tell me about your childhood.

I was born in XXX, Florida.  Grew up in XXX, Florida.  All my life.  My parents were chicken farmers. Not ordinary chicken farmers. I mean, we had like 150,000 at a time. And that’s were I grew up at.

***What were your parents like?

They were okay, strict but good. My dad was a good father, he was an education freak and but all in all it... I had a good childhood. I went to xxx Elementary, xxx Middle School, and xxx High School.  I graduated there.  I went to University of Florida.  I received a Master’s degree in Civil Engineering.  I am a licensed civil engineer now.  I am also a licensed contractor.  I probably won’t go any further than that.  I am 50.  I thought at one time, back you know, back when the living was good about maybe trying to do a PHD. I could teach with a Master’s but I this thing that happened to me, honestly, it really knocked the wind out of me. 

*** Tell me what happened?

I owned a company.  We did all commercial work.  Worked over the whole state of FL.  In 2008 when the economy headed down I had three major developers file bankruptcy on me.  It cost my company about 4.5 million dollars to get out of it.  Whenever I did that and it was that kind of a blow and we were in an economy that I could not gain work to recover because there was no work and we were also in a situation with the bank where they had closed the door to small business people. They did not want to talk about it.  It started a downward spiral there in 2008.  I tried to hang on.  I cut my crews back.  I was working 15-18 hours a day, 7 days a week. I did it until it liked to kill me.  I was working all those hours and worrying and trying to hold on to keep the door open.  In 2009 I was sitting in my office and I thought I had heartburn.  I went to the doctor.  The doctor rushed me to the ER, and when I was in the ER I had a massive heart attack.  I was in a coma for 36 days.  While I was in the coma they opened it up and did 6 bypasses.  When I woke up out of the coma, it was a Monday morning.  On Wednesday I had one of my employees pick me up in a truck and I went back to work and I tried to hold on.  I was doing everything I could to hold on and it was about to kill me.  It just kept going down and down and like I said before we were just in an economy where you just could not recovery.  And so I had 3 homes.  I lost them. I had a business.  I lost it.  Vehicles.  I had 26 trucks.  I lost them.  I lost EVERYTHING I had.  I lost everything I had.  It just cost me everything I could scrape to get out.  I had a 25k$ retainer attorney and the only thing they could tell me was these people are protected under federal law.  You cannot even ask for your money.  It is gone.  There is no getting it back.  Normally the bank will back you up.  Normally, you pick up jobs and you slowly recover.  From 2008 to now the banks do not want to hear from you if you are a small business and there is no work out there.  So, there is no recovery right now.  Or- there is recovery but not that kind.  So, I lost everything I had.  I lost it down to everything.  I lost everything.  When I got through, I was walking the street in Jacksonville. I had 40$ in my pocket.  I was by the bus station.  I got a ticket to Orlando.  Got off at the bus station (in Orlando).  Walked down the road at XXX( a really bad part of town) and I walked down the road and I was thinking oh my God if this is Orlando they need to shut Orlando down.  I was in a bad neighborhood.  I stayed on (that road) for 4 days underneath the overpass in the bushes with the crack heads.

I have a wife and a 4-year-old little boy.  Whenever the Lexus went and the unlimited credit cards went, she went with them.  So on top of everything else, now I’m heartbroken.    I never drank. I’ve never done drugs.  I’ve only been smoking for about 3 weeks.  I’m trying to get used to it.  You know, I stayed on (that road) for them days.  You kind of had to try to maybe sleep in a restaurant during the day because at night out there...  People do not realize it but when you lay down in the bushes at night you have to stay awake because the rats get on you.  So, I did that for 4 days and I finally got to the point where I said, well, what I am going to do is, I am going to go across here, I got about 5$ in my pocket.  I am going to go across to this auto parts store, and I am going to get me a gallon of antifreeze and I am going to sit out in the bushes tonight and I am going to drink it.   

*** more with Carl next post.


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The Homeless Interviews #7

Today we are back to Scott, the director.  Did you know that Jesus was homeless?  Luke 9:58 "Jesus replied, Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head."

*** What is the one thing a typical homeless person wants, and you said socks and underwear.

Socks and underwear.  You mean I tell you what, if that was all we did I think they would be happy, not now because of all the other stuff we do.

*** Do they want to know Jesus?

Many of them do.  Some of them are very angry at God.  Some of them were brought up in Christian homes that were over zealous and beat on them with the Bible.  Used it very improperly, misquoted it, manipulated them with it.  And so we are trying to build that trust. We’ve got people who get upset with us because they do not see us all carrying around Bibles, sitting down with scriptures all day,  trying to get them to understand that look, they do not want to know how much you know until they see how much you care.  Okay, so we have taken a very different approach to it. Believe me, hang around here enough you are going to hear God all the time in this place. We are starting a new program using the Recovery Bible.  We are setting up a recovery group right here that meets on Tuesdays for those people who will not go into a program but it is like AA except for the fact that instead of a ‘higher power’ we tell them about Jesus Christ.  We do not soften the edges of it.

*** Do you find that once they find Jesus they think their life will become normal?

No, becuase the first thing we tell them is, I cannot tell you if you are ever getting out of the woods and I will personally take someone to the woodshed who tells them otherwise.  It is real important to say to them, look, I do not know why God has allowed this. I am one who believes God has ordained or allowed everything.  So if he has allowed it all I can see is step back and ask what is he trying to get us to learn?  How is He using this.  This has been true throughout biblical times so why should that change now?  Why would God ask me to walk away from a 6-figure income after I had been homeless?  I have been at both ends and because he wanted me to know both.

*** So why do those volunteers come who want nothing to do with the homeless?

Guilt.  I think often, guilt.  The other is, most are people who do not have much themselves, on the verge of homelessness themselves.  They really get it.  They understand they are a couple of paychecks away. 

***They want to help but they do not want to have anything to do with the actual person?

Well, no they do.  I’m saying there are 2 different groups.  There are those that want nothing to do with homelessness but all of a sudden it is like ‘oh my gosh’ these are just real people with various strugges, but real people.  They are really just a reflection of society.  It drives me crazy when the news says a homeless guy killed somebody.  If he was stockbrocker would you say a stockbrocker killed somebody?  No.  No, he did not kill somebody because he is homeless.  He killed somebody because he is a murderer who happened to live in the woods.  that just makes me crazy.  So we’ve got the people who you know have a preconcieved idea, a lot of preconcieved ideas and then you have people who are just so close themselves.  They have had illness in their family, they have lost jobs, they have seen careers go down the toilet.  They have seen all of these things and so I think they are drawn to be a part of the change. If you came in here and see them you go, okay, alright, yeah, I know they are struggling.  Those are also the people that are our money people, too.  The people who give the most have the least.  It is crazy. It is absolutely crazy. I mean we have had some fairly substantial donations.  Our largest two donators, one owns 4 McDonalds and the other is homeless.  Is this a crazy world we live in?  They both gave us 5,000$. 

***Tell me the most encouraging story about a specific person.

Probably someone like Kevin C.  KC is a war veteran, decorated soldier who could not deal with the world when he came out of it.  He basically just became...he did drugs and alcohol, but alcohol became his thing.  He basically stayed pretty fickle for abut 40 years.  We just loved on him.  He was mean and nasty and gruff.  He was an SOB most of the time.  You know, you sit there and part of you just says, why am I even bothering. As we got to know him and he got to know us and we got to know his story the door opened and God just opened some really neat doors to minister to him and then Frank G. Frank is here every Tuesday now from about 1 to 4 and Frankie has a street ministry and Matthew’s Hope gave him a chance to touch these people at least twice a week every Tuesday and every Saturday night.  He is a former alcholic and drug addict and he is not afraid to go anywhere. He is a lot like I am. God placed Frankie here at a critical time because I could not stretch any further.  Frankie came to me and I kind of knew him. I had spoken at a men’s recovery group a couple of years earlier, he remembered me and he contacted me and he just wanted to come and I kind of pushed him off a little bit.  I said Frankie I want you see what we are doing first.  So he came out, he and his wife, Cindy, she is former marine, former alcoholic as well.  They are a mess. They are in the process of loosing their own home.  He has been very instrumental in helping getting a place with various programs and he kind of took Kevin under his wing, took it a step further and Kevin, he had veteran’s benefits.  We were able to help him to get those and get him into a veteran’s program and he is clean now and now he fell off this last week.  100 days and he fell off.  He was so ashamed, but you know what, that’s what happens.  He made it 100 days.  So you got to kind of look at it that way and if you meet him he looks nothing like he did when he started.  He could barely walk.  Even well after he quit drinking because his system was so screwed up his equilibrium was like all over the place and we had a hard time because of the weakness of his body to get him in various programs.  We finally got him into a VA program and now he is getting ready to go into his next step which I think will be another program, disability.  He is living in an RV and he’s got his retirement and he came by here the other day and helped build a desk.  In fact he stuck his number inside my desk and he said, you know, anytime you need me just call and so we have had some really neat success stories and there are more and but those are some of the coolest. Every week there is a different cool one and it is different levels and now I have even seen some children and women.

*Most discouraging?

One of the most discouraging stories is Diane.  Diane was a crack head when we got ahold of her and we got her clean and got her working at McD’s helped her to get a little RV she was renting.  Got her away from her homeless husband, not real husband.  Got all of her teeth pulled.  Her teeth were just rotten from the meth, got her medical and dental care.  Got her all cleaned up.  Got her a new set of dentures. She realized she really needed to get out of the area to take her life to the next level and so she had a way to go to I think N.C.  Got hold of a McD up there, she said I’m a current employee, they would hire her before she ever came up so at least had her job.  She gets up there and lasts a month and she shows up back here with the guy again. When she came back we did not fall all over her.  We did it on purpose.  We would do it again but they have to make that decision.  Much like any other alcholic, drug addict, whatever you are dealing with.  Homelessness is almost an addiction, it really is in a weird way. Some of this is real heartbreaking, and then when she was leaving she bit the hands off a lot of people that helped her and even the hands of people here. It was hurtful but it was one of those things that there were people who would say, you know, what the hell.  I understand why and what we need to do is say, okay God, this is... once again we need to trust in God’s timing and purpose.