For homeless men in Citrus County, a new hope
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Currently, mission members do their fundraising outside of retailers like Wal-Mart.
CITRUS COUNTY (Bay News 9) — Long considered the exclusive domain of big cities, awareness of homelessness has become a problem that even small towns are now tackling.
In Citrus County, a new source of hope for homeless men can be found at the Mission in Citrus, a new shelter started by Jim Sleighter.
“What we’re trying to do is get them a job, get them in school, get them the resumes, the food stamps, everything they need to get back on their feet, get them back into society as fast as possible,” Sleighter said.
The Mission in Citrus is different from other shelters. There are no rigid programs – just a group who hold each other responsible and share their faith with each other.
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What the organization doesn’t have, however, is official status as a non-profit organization. That paperwork is still awaiting approval by the state.
As a result, to do their funding, mission members have to hold their hands out for money outside stores like Wal-Mart.
“[That money] pays the light bill, it pays the gas,” Sleighter said.
The mission’s efforts attracted the attention of Nancy Kennedy, a reporter with Bay News 9‘s partner paper, the Citrus County Chronicle, and inspired her to write a three-part series.
“I’m discovering who the homeless are isn’t who we think they are,” Kennedy said.
At the Mission in Citrus, some of those homeless men include a 22-year-old who wants to be a paramedic, a 42-year-old veteran with a history of alcoholism and a self-described “career” homeless man – a 54-year-old the men at the mission call “pappy.”
Thanks to the Mission in Citrus, these men are technically no longer homeless.
Kennedy said she sees something the mission has given to the men that live at the shelter, which is why her series is called “Faces of Hope.”
By Nancy Kennedy
Editor’s note: To mark National Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week Nov. 16-22, the Chronicle is profiling these men. This is part one of a three-part series.
For a vagabond and a drifter — that’s what the police call him, he says — L.C. “Pappy” Robertson keeps a neat room.
Everything is in its proper place, his bow (sans string or arrows), his notebook and ink pen, his stuffed parrot, bottles of ibuprofen and vitamins.
“I don’t like looking at nothing plain,” he says.
His prized possession, a tiger blanket, covers his bed in his room at the top of the stairs at the Mission in Citrus, a homeless shelter for men in Lecanto.
At age 54, Pappy has spent the past 10 years living in tents in the woods and sleeping behind buildings.
Before that, he worked construction.
“For a long time, I wanted to be homeless,” he says. “I lived down in Naples. I didn’t want anybody telling me what to do. I was in the labor pool — I could go to work when I wanted to — and when I didn’t want to, I stayed home and got drunk.”
Pappy makes life in the woods sound romantic and idyllic. He and whoever else was around him would set up a camp in the woods. They’d eat at a local mission or buy food with food stamps or money they panhandled.
“We had a Coleman stove to cook on, and we had a big, screened-in tent that was like a kitchen,” he says. “For showers we had a big ol’ fresh water lake — with alligators.”
But it wasn’t always fun. Like when he was panhandling, sometimes the police would hassle him.
“I’d say, ‘Would you rather have me ask for it or take it from them?’ Either way it’s illegal,” he said, “but I did it anyway. I made enough to survive.”
Sometimes people bought him food. Sometimes, like when he had the shakes, he’d tell someone, “I need a beer” and ask for money.
He’s been sober for five months now.
“I asked God to take (drinking) away from me,” he said. “I didn’t want to shake no more.”
Pappy loves to tell people how he got his tiger blanket.
“God gave me that,” he said. “I was sleeping behind a store one time and all I had was two big jackets to cover up with, and somebody threw something over me. I don’t know who gave it to me. It fell out of heaven.
“I was freezing to death,” he said. “I was so glad.”
After living in Naples for a while, Pappy lived with some friends in Ft. Myers until they took off for Tennessee. Then he met another guy and invited him to stay with him in a big eight-man tent. That guy wanted to go to Cocoa Beach, so they packed up their stuff and hitched a ride with a guy who didn’t speak English and ended up in Miami.
When they did make it to Cocoa Beach, his friend met up with a woman and Pappy was by himself. He ended up in Orlando and Apopka, bumming money to take city buses and sleeping in abandoned buildings and on the street. He did that for about a year, until he found his way northwest to Citrus County.
It’s here in Citrus County that he decided he didn’t want to be homeless anymore. He met the other men at the Mission in Citrus and moved in.
His job at the mission is gardening, although it’s too cold to plant anything right now. He’s cultivating an organic garden, getting the dirt ready for when it warms up.
“People ought to look at the homeless in a respectful way and not judge them,” he said. “They ought to talk to them. They’re welcome to come here any time they want or get out in the woods and talk to them, maybe take them a Bible because they might not have one, see what their side of the story is, not what people say about them.”
Pappy said there are a lot of good people in the woods who might not want to go to a shelter that’s run with strict rules, “like jail.” He said there are some like that.
“Might as well go to jail — there you get ‘three hots and a cot,’” he said. “I’ve been in prison five times, for illegal possession of a firearm, unlawful exhibition, drugs, fighting, but I’m retired from that.
“I’m retired from all the jail, all the trouble, all the probation. I don’t have to look over my shoulder — I’m not wanted for anything anymore,” he said. “Right now I’m trying to get my disability, get some help. If I could do anything, I’d be a junk man and a fisherman.”
Since meeting Jim Sleighter, director of the Mission in Citrus, he’s been in touch with his family — a brother in Lake City and sisters in Alabama.
“Connecting with family is one of the most important things in the life of a homeless person,” Sleighter said..
So is cultivating a person’s natural gifts and talents. Sleighter said Pappy has talents and ideas that will help make the shelter successful.
“This is how we built the program,” he said. “When we all met (at another shelter), we talked and asked each other, ‘What would help the homeless?’ That’s how this evolved. Everything’s coming from their ideas because the best person to help the homeless is someone who’s been through it.”
By Nancy Kennedy
Like Daniel Clark, his housemate at the Mission in Citrus, Kevin Shaw doesn’t fit the stereotypical profile of a homeless person.
He crochets, plays guitar. He’s clean-cut, great with kids. He wants to be a paramedic and a firefighter. He has two rats as pets.
If you saw him bagging groceries or stocking shelves at Sweetbay in Inverness, you would never know that he spent three years without a home.
He looks like your son, your brother, your nephew.
He’s only 22.
“My mom raised three kids as a single parent in Connecticut, and it was hard on her,” he said. “I moved in with my dad, but I was a rebellious teenager and moved out of his house. My mom didn’t have room for me anymore, so I spent three years homeless.”
At 20, Shaw came to Florida to live with his grandfather. However, he hadn’t outgrown his partying stage.
“I decided I wasn’t done messing up my life,” he said.
At one point he worked at a bar in Floral City, bouncing from place to place. He moved in with a friend and started using meth and crack.
“A kid I met said, ‘Hey, you need to get out of that situation,’ so I moved in with his family and took care of his little brothers,” he said.
Shaw calls that time his nanny days. He got the boys up, dressed them and fed them breakfast, then kept the house cleaned during the day in exchange for room and board.
“They became like family to me,” he said.
But then he was caught by the police with sleeping pills in his wallet and had to leave his friend’s house.
Now he lives at the mission with other men who share his same desire to get help and be a help to others. He doesn’t dwell on his past bad choices; neither does he blame them on anyone but himself. He readily says, “I messed up.”
He also says he wants to be better, to train for a career. He has hope for the future.
When you’re homeless, hope is in short supply.
“I’m in a pre-trial intervention program,” Shaw said of his drug arrest. “When I get off probation it won’t be on my record and I can still go into firefighting and paramedics like I want to. That’s my goal.”
“I think what they’re doing to help these guys get their lives back together is a good thing,” said Larry Gamble, store manager of the Wal-Mart Superstore in Inverness and board member of the Mission in Citrus.
“They’re not just hanging out having fun like some people think of the homeless, but they’re trying to be citizens in the community. Some have even gotten jobs, and that’s a positive thing.”
By Nancy Kennedy
The men who live at the Mission in Citrus in Lecanto met at another homeless shelter.
Their stories and their reasons for finding themselves homeless are varied, but they shared a common belief that they could help one another and help other homeless men.
As they talked about the various shelters they had been in, the ones with strict rules and what they felt was forced religion, they decided to pool their own ideas and strike out on their own.
In the world of local homeless shelters, the Mission in Citrus is the new kid on the block and struggling to survive. The shelter’s director, Jim Sleighter, is still in the process of obtaining 501 (c) (3) status, which means until then the donations needed to operate are not tax-deductible, but are still necessary.
“That’s the problem when you want to start something,” Sleighter said. “People don’t donate until you have (that status) and a lot of shelters fail because of that, but the homeless are still coming in.”
It’s a matter of faith for this faith-based ministry and for the men who call this place home. They believe in God and each other and believe they can bring hope and a home eventually to as many as 75 homeless men in Citrus County.
Sleighter, the former owner of Kelly’s Health Club in Crystal River, which was destroyed in a fire in 2007, has big dreams.
“The future plan — I want to buy the house across the street,” he said, pointing to the seven-bedroom house on the eight-acre lot across from the shelter on Leona Avenue.
The house they all live in belongs to one of the men’s mother. They rent from her for $750 a month.
“The property next to this — there’s a small house and another three acres. What I’m trying to do is get this whole section, and if I can, I can have 75 homeless people living here,” Sleighter said.
Another idea that’s in the works is for an Angel On Wheels mobile unit, a 53-foot trailer equipped with showers, toilets, sinks and laundry facilities as well as counseling and office areas, food pantry and soup kitchen.
The idea is to take the vehicle into the community and staff it with volunteers from local churches and the community at large, to provide practical help for the homeless.
On the Mission in Citrus Web site, Sleighter said, “The only way to end homelessness is to bring the homeless population and the community together through volunteerism, awareness, kindness, and most of all, action.”
Becoming self-sufficient
Sleighter’s interest and heart for the homeless and disadvantaged began when he was still running Kelly’s gym. Even before the facility became a nonprofit on May 27, 2007, he often allowed people to use the gym for free or at reduced fees.
After he lost the gym — the business insurance lender had dropped the gym’s policy May 29 — Sleighter, who was living above the gym, lost his home. In addition, he and his wife divorced.
“It was a domino effect,” he said.
He found himself down and out and took off to Daytona to stay with a friend who ran a hotel.
“There are different degrees of homelessness,” Sleighter said. “My friend let me stay in his hotel for free, and if it weren’t for him, I would’ve been homeless. It wasn’t my home, so I was homeless to a degree.”
He said it was there that he started seeing people eating from trash bins and thinking about how he could help the homeless. He came back to Citrus County after about six months to help with another local homeless ministry.
That’s where he met the other men; he stayed there for four months until the house on Leona Avenue became available.
They rely on small financial donations from individuals and two local churches. Local businesses such as Wal-Mart, Pizza Hut, Outback Steakhouse, Habitat for Humanity and Pepperidge Farm Bakery and Thrift Store in Inverness, supply them with the basic necessities to run the house.
Upon moving in together, the men made a rule: We do not turn anyone away (as long as there’s room). That means no one has to adhere to a profile or submit to a program. They are the program.
They rise at 6 a.m. every morning. After chores and breakfast they meet for 7 a.m. devotions and a time to air their differences. Then they form a circle for prayer and Sleighter warms up the car to take some of the younger men to classes at Withlacoochee Technical Institute and jobs and others to interviews and appointments. Some days he’s in the car all day, Sleighter said.
“We’re starting two organic gardens,” he said. “Someone is donating a hydroponic gardening system so we can do 21 crops a year. My goal is to be totally self-sufficient in six months, because I don’t want to have to beg people for money.”
The men volunteer their time at the Habitat home store and their labor at Habitat builds. They are willing to trade labor for donations (See their Web site at www.missionincitrus.com for list of needs).
They want jobs and a future and the opportunity to help others who are homeless. Sleighter has a vision to buy homes that are in foreclosure and fill them with five or six men who get along together and who can find jobs and contribute to the support of the mission.
Sleighter would also like to open another gym.
“Jim has a great imagination,” said Jerry Tanner, a friend of the Mission in Citrus and a local advocate for the homeless. “My wife and I have been out there a few times with food and clothes and they’re all about helping others, not just themselves. His approach is what makes me comfortable.
“Years ago, I had some bad days of my own,” he said, “and after hearing a speaker from (a mission in Ohio), I started helping out and saw that many of the homeless are good people, just down on their luck.”
“Stability is key,” Sleighter said. “They can stay here as long as they want, long enough to learn budgeting and anger management and whatever it takes to be stable, because if you’re not stable and you’re put out on the street, you’ll be right back.”
The Mission in Citrus is open for anyone to visit.
By Nancy Kennedy
Daniel Clark is too young to be homeless.
At 20, he’s the youngest man at the Mission in Citrus. He calls Jim Sleighter, the shelter director, “the best guardian angel and father figure a guy could have.”
Raised by a single mom, Clark moved to Citrus County from Fort Myers with his mom and sister at age 16.
“We moved here on a whim,” he said. “My mom wanted a better life for us.”
But life wasn’t better. He and his mother got into a fight and Clark went into foster care for the next two years.
“Two weeks before I turned 18, I ran away from the Altoona Boys Ranch in Lake County and started selling cocaine,” he said.
His mother had moved to Marco Island and after Clark turned 18 he moved there and back in with his mom. When he was almost 19, he returned to Citrus County and sold crack.
“I just got my driver’s license and my sister moved here and I had my own vehicle and was doing pretty good,” he said. “Then I turned 19, and I got a DUI that led to having to turn my life around instead of wanting to.”
He entered a residential treatment program, but chafed at the rigid rules. A girl he had met while in foster care was at the same program and the rules forbade them from talking to each other.
“I started dating her anyway and we left because they said we were breaking the rules,” he said.
The girl had medical problems that had gone unchecked, complications from gall bladder surgery. They checked into a hotel and stayed there until the girl got too sick and Clark took her to the hospital.
“I sat there for three days, but she died,” he said.
Without a place to go, he met Sleighter, who helped him arrange a funeral for his girlfriend.
“I was off drugs then for a few months,” Clark said. “Jim asked me what I wanted to do in life. I wanted to go to school.”
Clark wanted to go to massage therapy school at Withlacoochee Technical Institute, but the class was filled.
“I started to get discouraged, but Jim said don’t lose hope and to keep my chin up,” he said. “Then he said something about cosmetology, but that class was filled, too.”
Sleighter bought Clark a pair of scrubs anyway, to encourage him not to lose faith. A space in the class opened up and Clark was approved for a Pell grant. He now attends cosmetology classes so he can become a barber.
“I have a B average and I’ve been drug-free for five months,” he said. “I go to church on Friday nights and Sundays at Calvary Christian Center.”
On a Thursday morning, Clark met with the other men he calls his family in the living room at the mission for their daily devotional time. It had been a difficult week for them. Two of the men were gone — one who was asked to leave and one who left by his own decision.
The good news: their time of soliciting funds in front of Wal-Mart Superstore in Inverness garnered more than $1,500. More good news: Coldwell Banker in Crystal River had donated all the furniture and fixtures in the office for the guys to sell.
“A lot of people say it’s not going to work,” Sleighter told them, “but I disagree. You guys are living proof that what we do here does work.”
It was Clark’s turn to lead the men in prayer. He prayed for a computer for himself, a chance for another man to go fishing and that they could all go to church together on Sunday.
“Thank you for all the opportunities you’ve given us,” Clark prayed. “I also thank you that you’re a forgiving God, and even if we’re not perfect, you still love us. And I pray that … we can show people that the homeless aren’t all a bunch of drug addicts and alcoholics.”