COLUMN: Help, hope and the homeless man

At any given time in the United States, there are more than 700,000 homeless per night. Thirty-one million Americans live in hunger or on the edge of hunger. One in five of them is a child. Forty percent of the homeless population consists of military veterans. And many of those people holding cardboard signs proclaiming “Homeless, Need help, God Bless” find themselves in these miserable circumstances because of domestic violence, drug abuse or mental illness. Some, I suspect, beg on street corners because it’s easier than working.

By the way, the statistics which began this article come from information gathered when times were good (2004-2005). Imagine how much worse now that we’re in the middle of economic hard times.

I’m sure you’ve seen those homeless sign holders across from Fort Walton’s Publix or here in Destin between Target and Winn-Dixie.

Maybe, you’ve seen that lady standing in those same areas. Except her sign reads, “I work. You work. They don’t.” It’s hard to know which side to sympathize with.

A couple of weeks ago, such a person showed up as a visitor sitting beside me in my Sunday School class. His tattered and heavily underlined Bible captured my attention, and I immediately felt a sense of connection, especially since Frank and I had just been discussing a few days before that we needed someone to help us, now that his physical condition has deteriorated so much in the last few months following his debilitating stroke. We decided we needed a “handy man,” but had no idea where to find a good one. When the visitor said he was homeless, jobless and desperate, we threw all caution to the winds and asked him to show up Monday to work for us.

Even after discovering that he lived behind a local business in a plywood lean-to he made out of scraps and camouflaged with branches to prevent detection.

My yard, which had resembled an abandoned lot for the last two years, now looks like a picture out of Homes and Gardens; unruly tree limbs are trimmed, and eight bags of weeds and debris now sit by the curb for trash day pickup. The porch steps are repaired, and the pool no longer looks like an ecosystem for scum -dwelling creatures.

I know we took a risk. In fact, friends have advised us he may be an axe murderer at the very least. Statistics and the media support their fears.

Somehow, though, he seems a remarkable exception. Maybe because I met him in church; maybe it was the ancient Bible given him by his grandmother, maybe because he said he’d work for whatever we thought was fair payment. Then when I paid him, he said it was too much and that he would not need any more for several days. (Another reason being that it’s dangerous for homeless people to carry cash on them).

Something else this fellow has done for me is to restore my spirits. It was depressing to trip on the broken porch step, see the sorry mess that had become my yard, and feel as if my very surroundings had turned to shambles. Now I go to Home Depot and buy bright flowers and dig in my flower beds again. I enjoy looking at my ragged nails and seeing the potting soil under them. While he does the heavy, sweaty stuff, I get to play in the geraniums, portulaca, daisies and impatiens. I even have two new pink roses replacing the dead ones that had been symbols of my hopelessness and lack of motivation.

Apparently, Frank and I aren’t the only ones taking a chance on him. A prominent Christian businessman brings him food nightly to his hidden home, helped him write a resume for employment and gave him the money to get his cell phone turned back on.

An elderly lady down the street from me has him cut her grass and do home repairs for her.

His goal is to have a real job and a real place to live by winter. Frank and I offered to let him stay in our RV behind the house, but he turned us down, reminding us that it’s against a Destin city ordinance and he didn’t want to cause trouble for us.

I hope to report in later columns that my faith in the homeless man has been worthwhile. If you don’t hear from me again, I guess some folks were right, and I was murdered in my bed.

But I’m counting on the faith.

 Mary Ready of Destin is a twice-retired English teacher and long-time area resident. Her columns are published on Saturdays.