Michael's Story

A year ago, Michael Kelly was homeless. In March 2006, he was featured in an article in the Independent Weekly (www.indyweek.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A29665). At the time, Housing for New Hope's PATH outreach program was working with Michael to get him off the street. This led Michael to Housing for New Hope's Phoenix House, which provided housing and a structured program to help Michael rebuild his life. Michael now has a job and his name on a lease at Andover Apartments, Housing for New Hope's supportive housing development for formerly homeless individuals with disabling conditions. We asked Michael to write about his experience being homeless and his road to recovery.....

My Story

I was living the average American dream. I was making $60,000 a year and had a home and family with 2 cars. It has been said that the average American is a few paychecks and a few bad decisions away from being homeless. In less than 6 months my world came to an end. A divorce, loss of my job, home and vehicles happened so fast I could not believe it.

I had always drank a little, but the loss of my family and my life as I knew it brought on depression, and I tried to drown my sorrow with alcohol which made me unemployable. During this time I was staying with friends or family, whoever would have me at the time. I was working whatever jobs I could get at the time and contributing a little to whoever's household would tolerate me at that time. Due to my drinking I would eventually wear out my welcome at my job or where I was staying, then I would move on. Finally, I ran out of jobs and places to stay. I was completely homeless with nowhere to go but the shelters. I tried that for awhile, but I didn't like being crowded into tight places with a bunch of dirty, stinking, bums and drug addicts. I was still better than that, I wasn't one of them, I was somebody. I used to be important, I used to have a home, a great job, lots of money, a family and cars. I used to have a LIFE! I didn't belong here! How did this happen to me? I prayed to God to help me get out of this nightmare, I wanted it to be all a bad dream. I wanted to wake up and have someone tell me it was all right. I had to leave that place before I became one of those awful people. I slept on a bench outside that night, but I was free! Free from that awful, stinky, cramped place full of homeless bums. I still couldn't accept that I was one of them.

When I awoke, a strange thing happened. I saw a man coming out of the woods, and he was stretching and rubbing himself as if he had also just woke up, like I had, from sleeping outside. Then it came to me-I was a Boy Scout, I had been on many camping trips and jamborees as a young boy. I would build myself a shelter in the woods and live there.

Thus the Legend of White Mike (the white guy that lives in the woods) began. Nobody bothered me, I guess because they thought I was crazy, but they were nice to me wherever we met, so I survived without being in the shelter. I got to know people at the shelter during my brief stay there. They knew why I didn't want to stay there, so they would let me shower there, do my laundry and eat there. So my plan was working to a certain extent. I even got a job at Labor Finders. Things weren't that bad anymore. I may be living in the woods, but I had a part time job, could eat, bathe, and do laundry. Then God decided I had a little more to learn. I didn't mention earlier that pride and vanity and turning away from God, saying that I got this now God, You can take a back seat, were part of the bad decisions I made to get the ticket for this rollercoaster ride to Hell, did I?

I fell on ice and broke my wrist and lost my last and only job. Then got put in jail over my child support. When I got out of jail all I could do was stand at McDonald's or other places displaying my cast and brace, explaining that I couldn't work and begging for change.

I was surprised at the compassion and sympathy that was in some of the people I met. I was not surprised in the way many people treated me as if I was a disgusting piece of trash that should be treated as such and hauled away to God knows where, but I did not deserve to even be in their line of sight, they didn't care where I went, so long as it wasn't near them. It wasn't very long ago, I was SOMEBODY, I was IMPORTANT, I had a LIFE, I had MONEY, I was one the THEM before!

I believe that was the most important lesson that I learned since God sent me back to life school. I have learned many things through my recent trials and tribulations, but I believe that one to be the most important.

I did the best I could do in my situation, I learned to see the people that were just like I used to be and tried to avoid them and seek out the kind, caring and compassionate ones. If I wasn't sure, their response to a simple greeting would prove who they truly were. Labor Finders wouldn't work me, I tried to get a job, but no address or phone on an application gets you nothing in return, so I spent my day working people. I moved my camp to a more appropriate area for begging. I needed to be around more affluent people and rich college kids are cool, too.

The working class people downtown don't have money to spare and they don't like their jobs, so they hate everybody, especially a bum; whereas young, rich, college kids have a great outlook on life and a true hope for humanity as a whole. The more affluent adults have compassion for the needy as well.

You must consider my plight in life which created this line of thinking. But it worked very well for me. I set up camp in the woods next to 2 stores that sold gas and had air pumps, so if someone had tire or car problems, I could use my knowledge to help a motorist in a jam, plus, whatever they could donate to my cause would help me and my friends. I worked alone-that was my style, a small, mild mannered, polite, jovial, helpful, bum, did not threaten anyone, he just expressed great need for himself and for his friends that he had taken into his shelter in the woods. The homeless helping the homeless in his hobo camp that he built in the woods. A Robin Hood bum of sorts. I didn't like what I was doing. I was not proud of it. But I survived in the woods 2 years like that, plus I was helping other bums survive as well.

I would try to get jobs, I tried to get government assistance, but with no address or phone, I always failed. I had no way to go to people's offices on a regular basis, I couldn't call them when they told me to. I actually qualified for food stamps but had no address to mail them to. I figured out a way to do that through the shelter, but then couldn't get to the required meetings to finally get them.

The road to Heaven is a narrow one, as if a path. The road to Hell is wide and easy to follow. Which road was I on? I did not know. I would lay in my camp and pray to God daily. I would beg his forgiveness for my pride and vanity which surely brought on this punishment. I acknowledged to Him that I fully accept my 7 years of trials and tribulations. I would try to figure out when they started, so I could guess when they might end. I would rationalize to Him how I was helping other needy people with my work (begging). I would pray for Him to bless my efforts and guide my steps to only cross with kind people, to not offend anyone and to multiply my profits. Most of all I prayed fo a real job and a place to live.

One day I met people from Housing for New Hope. People had talked to me about the shelters before. I told them about how they only house bums and kick you out every morning anyway and the mission makes you work without pay, just 10 bucks love money, and you can't leave when you want to. I compared it to white slavery and I didn't like it. I liked the freedom of the woods better, thank you very much. I was just fine.

But Reggie and Alphonso said that there were places where you could stay and get your own job and work to save money and try to rebuild your life, but you had to quite drinking and go to meetings and other stuff. We had a great conversation then and several times after that. They even brought us coffee and sausage biscuits to our camp at 6AM a few times. But I didn't want to stop drinking. Keep in mind that when you are homeless and sleeping outside in all sorts of weather, alcohol is to the human body just like anti-freeze is to a car-it helps you through the weather, but over time it causes internal damage.

Reggie started bringing Dian to meet us. She even bought me a sleeping bag to keep warm with. We all became sort of like friends before I almost died

-TWICE-

Both times God allowed me to get to the hospital just before I bled to death with internal bleeding. The first time I was in Duke for 3 weeks and they told me I would die if I didn't stop drinking. I called Reggie and Diane and they came to visit but I still wasn't ready. Then, less than 5 days after my release, I had managed to undo what it took the doctors 3 weeks to fix. I was dying all over again, and even the bums I was taking care of were begging me to go to the hospital. They called the people that wanted to save my life. They said everything at the camp would be fine and they would be ok without me-just don't die on them.

I now know that they were in the outreach program, doing the one thing that no other organization does. They bring help to the needy. They don't sit in an office waiting for a call from someone that has no phone to call with. They don't wait on someone to come to the office that has no way to get there. They go out and find the people that truly need help. I have seen people separate just so the wife can go apply for government aid because her husband left her, and they get it!!!!

Street people can get no help. But women pull up all day long driving BMW's and Accura's and cash in. The system is corrupt, there is no backup investigation to see if dad's coming to supper and sleeping over. Just go to their home and look for his clothes and toiletries. If he has left, it wouldn't be there! So many people suffer needlessly, while others lie, cheat and steal from these programs.

If I had my way, Housing for New Hope would get more funding because they go find the people that truly need help. I know they saved my life and countless others before me and after me.

They take you in, give you a place to live, feed you, clothe you, give you any medical help you need, help you get a job, provide a structured atmosphere to help you in recovery, and help you rebuild your life toward independent living on your own again-paying your own bills, and giving you a new hope on life itself.

They truly help you become a productive member of society again, with a better view of the people who really are in need of help.

One Year Later

I am graduating from the Phoenix House this month (April 2007). I have already transitioned into my own apartment and have been hired there as a night watchman, so I now have two jobs. I want to help any way I can.

In closing:

When I was in elementary school, the teacher would ask us kids what we wanted to be when we grew up. We all had great dreams and ideas of how we wanted life to be when we grew up. Oddly enough, no one said they wanted to be homeless. What I'm trying to say is that every homeless person you see had those sames hopes and dreams, but life's struggles, or physical or mental disabilities, or drug or alcohol abuse, or any combination of the above, caused their world to come crashing down around them.

You would try to recover and start over, but without some sort of assistance, you would just fail again and again, until you just lost hope and gave up trying. The shelters do the best they can, but their main concerns are to feed and shelter as many individuals as possible.

I was lucky enough to find a program, (or actually, they found me), that works with you on a one to one basis, because each person has different physical, mental and emotional needs. Housing for New Hope helps you regain your self worth and self pride by helping you set and reach small goals one day at a time. As you see yourself progress, you are inspired to try harder and do better, and the light of hope is rekindled within you.

Just keep in mind, all homeless people are afraid. We are afraid of the system, the law, losing whatever we have left, trying to start over and failing again, but most of all we are afraid to change. We have gotten used to who we are and have accepted it. We need you to help us believe that change is possible. Thank you for listening.

A Letter of Thanks

Hello, My name is Mike.

I was a lost spirit. I had lost my way on the course of life. I lived in the woods. I was lost in the woods. One day, some people came in the woods trying to find me. They were in an outreach program. They were reaching out to me when no one else would. I had tried before, but no one cared then-those bureaucrats won't help me. So who are these people, why do they care?

They said they were with Housing for New Hope, that they could offer me a New Hope on life. They had a PATH Program that reaches out to people in need and helps them get back on the path to the road of recovery. To recover my life, I liked that. I was scared, nervous and afraid of change, but they comforted me and reassured me that they were different from the others before, that they truly cared about me and wanted to help me, not sweep me under a rug to get me out of sight. But to nurture me and help me rebuild my life. I believed in them and they believed in me, a bond of trust formed and I let them lead me out of the woods. Today, I have a job, apartment and money in the bank. Thanks to Housing for New Hope.

I have recovered my life. I still have work to do, but I have returned to being a productive member of society, and they will still continue to help me do better. They are proud of me and I am proud of them. I can only thank God for answering my prayers while I was lost in the despair of living in the woods, because He sent all the people I never got to meet that donate funds to support the efforts of Housing for New Hope so they could send people out to save people like me. Thank God for all the donors that helped save my life. I wish I could thank each of you personally. I intend to thank you each by continuing to make you all proud of me.

With all my respect,

Michael L. Kelly

Housing for New Hope

Preventing and Ending Homelessness ONE VALUABLE PERSON AT A TIME

Michael's Story

My Story

One Year Later

A Letter of Thanks

Preventing and Ending Homelessness
ONE VALUABLE PERSON AT A TIME