The recorder was lying on the table between us, like a spinner on some game that landed on him instead of me.
It was pointing at Rickey, the man tied to an oxygen tank and an hour glass counting down the days until eviction.
That was 2 weeks ago.
Eviction is scheduled for tomorrow.
I used to think homeless were a band of people who had made so many bad choices they’d lost everything, almost like gypsies, but less criminal.
If that were true of the man sitting across from me, here are the choices he made to earn his current predicament:
He chose to fall in love. His wife’s memory and the tiny ring he turns on his pinky are all he has left of her. His voice cracks when he says, I loved her very much, remembering the moment he found out she was sick.
So he chose to marry a new wife. Also sick, but expected to recover, until a doctor shot her veins full of the wrong medicine. She lived 18 months after that.
In the meantime, he chose to try to save her. Now all he has left of her are doctor bills amounting to millions of dollars.
So he chose to try to pay the bills—$3,500 a month—while working construction. But his boss died, passing the business on to a mentally challenged daughter who liquidated it.
He chose to keep paying the bills, although he was unemployed, but the hospital couldn’t wait and somehow took his military income.
He chose to sue and won his checks back, but only one has arrived. That was three years ago.
When he lost everything, he chose to live on the street until an ad in the newspaper asked for a roommate.
When his roommate filled her half of the trailer with shady business, he chose to move out.
For a while he chose to be the cook at a local mission, before it was shuttered.
Many details later, he chose to die of lung cancer, but a policeman found him sitting alone, emaciated, and threatened to arrest him if he didn’t accept a ride to the hospital.
That’s not the first time a homeless person has told me the love of a law enforcement officer saved their life.
So he chose to live, until heart attacks landed him in the hospital.
When the hospital discharged him onto the sidewalk, he chose to trust strangers to help him find a place to live. They did their best, but only a slumlord was willing to accept him. The slumlord wouldn’t show him the inside of the house until he signed the papers.
So he chose shelter, and signed. Inside his new home, the missing windows were nailed shut with plywood. In the back bedroom, two dogs had been locked away with an automatic feeder for weeks. There was no heat.
He couldn’t afford rent but chose to clean the feces off the walls, floor, and ceiling and hope for the best. After all, it was February and the woods wouldn’t thaw out until the mosquitoes and snakes woke up.
He met another homeless man who agreed to share rent, so he chose to trust him.
The man soon left without paying his portion.
Then came the eviction notice for nonpayment.
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As you can see, he had no choice, just a cascade of catastrophes precipitated by medical bills and loss of income.
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But on this day, he chose to have lunch with me. A representative from a local ministry brought him so I could share his story with you.
They have a plan to help him and others like him, but it will take a community—a Community of Hope.
This ministry involves business owners, engineers, pastors, and people just like us. The model works because it is already successful in Texas at a neighborhood called Community First! Village started by Alan Graham.
But first, Rickey.
If you would like to be part of retelling Rickey’s story with a happy ending, you can do that at https://hsvcommunityofhope.org/donate.
Maybe in honor of him, you could donate your lunch money tomorrow?
You can also help by sharing Rickey’s story.
After all, when we help rewrite someone’s life, it becomes part of our story too.
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“Our heart for this ministry is to maintain a narrative of hope, and a posture of invitation.”
~ Nathan Jewett, Community of Hope
Kindness to the poor is a loan to God, and He will repay the lender.
~ Proverbs 19:17
To find out more about Community of Hope, donate, or join their newsletter mailing list, please visit https://hsvcommunityofhope.org/ .
