RANTER OR DISGRUNTLED CLIENT

So what do you do with a homeless person, who after several chances, becomes a ranter on your blog AND sends you threatening email, takes no responsibility for his actions, spreads lies throughout town and bombards the newspaper with unfounded stories? PRAY, PRAY PRAY!

Last July, I was called by a church about a gentleman who was looking for a place to rent. Well, Geoff and I had a friend who was looking for a roomie so we agreed to meet with both of them to see if it would be a positive match. We picked the gentleman (and I use this term loosely)up so we could all meet at our house. For somebody who was homeless, he was very judgmental. For instance, he kept talking about how my furniture and stuff was 'junk'(most of my furniture and collectibles are antiques that I inherited from when my mom passed away.)This was based on the fact that prior to being homeless, he use to live in the high upscale subdivision of Kingsmill in Williamsburg, Va. Then we notice he kept going outside and sneaking some Vodka. When we approached him, he became argumentative. So we packed him up in the car and took him back to the woods he came from.

Then in January of this year I received a call from another church about a gentleman who needed a place to stay for a couple of nights. I should have said "If it is so-and-so, he can't come here," but I didn't. As soon as I arrived at the church, I saw him. I told the pastor's assistant "No" but we sat down and talked. He promised he wouldn't drink or cause any problems if we gave him another chance. So, we did. For a couple of days, he was ok. Then he started sneaking alcohol in or coming in drunk. And to make it worse, he was constantly making racial slurs. He even had the gall to say one of my friends (who is a board member) was a loser because she was 'fat' and married to an African-American. Now this was not said to me or her, but to another friend/client, who was also African-American. The gentleman he said it to questioned "Do you not realize I am African-American?" "No I don't look at you like that, I see you as handi-capped since you are in a wheelchair." Needless to say, we asked this gentleman to leave shortly afterwards. A week later he called me to see if I would pay for a motel room for him. "Sorry, I don't have the money for that." I tried to start a "Get his fines paid and back to Florida" fund, but many thought it would be enabling him, so we gave up.

Well, instead of him telling the truth about his drunkenness, he started spreading lies about us. But, soon afterwards, he started staying with the gentleman who does the local Foodbank here (which is also in the church that called me in January.) Not too long after that, I heard from one of the homeless on the streets that RH had once again been kicked out. After that, I hadn't heard much about or from RH. Until last week. Last week, to my surprise, I received this email from him "rob helwig" harbinger200304@hotmail.com Subject: YOU ARE OUT OF BUSINESS Dear You all: You will be hearing fom official types: Sincerely, ROB and then another today "rob helwig" harbinger200304@hotmail.com Subject: You Are Dun dEAR pATTI; pLEASE BE SURE TO REMEMBER HOW MUCH YOU HELPED. The last has CC: to the Washington Post and Virginia Gazette. I checked with other agencies and churches and found that they are also receiving emails similar to ours.

Oh yeah, that was something I had forgotten. He had moved from here to Florida sometime after his divorce. Eventually he was found in Florida and because he had a warrant for his something in Williamsburg, he was extradicted to Williamsburg. On a couple of occassions, people in the community had contacted the local police because he was walking around and making them nervous about his behavior and they were told "He was here until his fines were paid for his offense." Now after the majority of the agencies and churches have banned him, I think it would definately be in the community's best interest to get him back to Florida. What do you think?