UHC: What should I call you? Ray: Just call me Ray.

UHC: Okay Ray. Number one, thank you for talking with Dan and myself this morning, and sharing your new home with us…we are here to get some of your life story…of kind of what’s going on in your life. Can you tell us what lead up to you being homeless? Ray: Well, I…for 25 years here in Seneca I had done a regular job everyday. I had a tax paying job. My line of work was a seamstress. I made furniture. I made…we done upholstery and for 20 years I done that. I got a skill at that. Then, about 6 years ago, the people that I worked for they was up in the 90’s and they actually had me running the business. So, after they got down in the health they decided to close the business and I started going down hill from there.

UHC: So you were unemployed then? Correct? Ray: Yes ma’am, I was unemployed. I went to work for the people at the Anderson Speedway as a maintenance man. I took care of all the concession stand, the bathrooms, the ground area, you know, cleaning the stands up and, you know, stuff like that. And, come springtime, I could still go back to work for them people…it was seasonal work…they start in the summertime for 4 months…it’s only 3 days a week, but, you know, it’s better than nothing. So, as time went on, I kept falling back and back and back. When I finally realized that I had…I had hit bottom…I got family members here in Seneca, but I guess you could say I try to be too…too independent. I won’t rely on anybody.

UHC: Didn’t want to accept help.
Ray: Yeah. Not that I thought I was better…I knew I could do better. So, a lot of times, sometimes, you know, people did see me…come to my…you know, they seen me around and they’d say, boy that’s not him. That there, you know, that’s another Ray. Something’s happened. And, you know, they’d come around and offer me a little help, you know, and jobs and stuff, but I kind of backed away from that because I knew over the years that I had trained myself and learned that I can do better. And, I guess, wouldn’t take the help, and…um…that’s about it.

UHC2: How old were you when you became homeless?
Ray: I’ve been homeless for 6 years…I’m 51 now, so I’d say 45.

UHC2: So, now after all that time working, and all the sudden you’re homeless….How, you know, how’d you feel at that point in time?
Ray: You got to speak up a little bit…

UHC2: Oh, okay…at 45, after all the time you’d worked and everything…
Ray: …I worked when I could find work…

UHC2: How’d you feel being homeless?
Ray: I stayed in different states, you know, I would travel around. I’d…okay, like I’d go to Atlanta and work and make three or four hundred dollars…and then all of the sudden, I’d be in Washington, D.C.

UHC: Oh, so you traveled around…you left here, you left this area.
Ray: Yes, ma’am.

UHC: And you’d take a bus, is that what you’d do?
Ray: The bus or the train.

UHC: Or the train, and then go and find work. Did you go, like, the labor pools?
Ray: Well, mostly, labor pools, and Labor Ready, and Action Ready…places like that. And around Greenville I stayed at the Miracle Hill…Christian…Christian ministry over there, and this was last Easter…people from the Presbyterian Church…I, um, this might sound kind of strange, but it actually happened. They was having an Easter service, on Friday, and I had walked by the Church, and the church doors just opened up as I was walking by, there was some kind of sensors on the floor that make the doors open up, but I didn’t know that someone was on the other side of the door that made the door open so I stopped and I looked and I didn’t see nobody…and I said, well, I’m going to walk in here and hear what’s going on..

UHC: It’s an opportunity, right?
Ray: Yeah, so, when I walked in I met the minister, she’s from Ireland, and they invited me to the Christian service, and I met the lady that works at the soup kitchen, Ms. Abercrombie?

UHC: Right…I know who she is.
Ray: Right…and I came to service that day, and at that point I felt my life turning around, I felt like God was back with me now. They got me [indistinguishable] over at Miracle Hill Ministry over there, and I went over there with the help from the people from the United Way, and I went over there and stayed about 4 months, but over there I couldn’t get no job. I had a 3 hour a day job with the ministry, you know, that was to take care of my room and board and stuff.

UHC: Right…
Ray: And when I would go out to get jobs, the jobs they would give me was way outside the bus system. The buses didn’t go there, and I didn’t…I had plenty of job offers, and I got frustrated with that, so then I came back to Seneca and came back to my little hut over there, it was still there. Trees had fell in and stuff, and I’ll show you that after while. One day I was down at the soup kitchen, and I was sitting there eating, and Ms. Sherry, which I had never seen in my life before, that day she walked up to the table and sat down, and I thought she was somebody wanting a meal just like I was, and, you know, we started talking, and, uh, we went from there, and here I am now, here.

UHC: And that’s when you were still staying out in the…
Ray: …the hut…

UHC: …the hut?
Ray: Yes, ma’am.

UHC: What did you do, like when you were staying in the hut, when you weren’t working and all, what was a typical day like for when you woke up ‘til you went to bed at night? What did you do? How did you survive? What was your day like?
Ray: Well, I had one meal, one decent and hot meal everyday from the soup kitchen, and in between time, and make some money with some yard work done, and I would budget money real good. I don’t eat a lot, but whenever I do eat, I eat enough to get full, and then, I might not eat no more that day. I kept my food, you know like my frozen food that I would buy, in a cooler, and I would take ice and put it over the meats, and put it up under the house where it’s cool at, so the sun couldn’t get to it, and the rest of the day I’d be walking around looking for work, or I’d go back to my hut and I’d go to sleep. Mr. McCuthy started showing me how to get my disability started. And Ms. Sherry, she came in and she started showing me some things. And I guess I let the former of being independent go, and let somebody help me.

UHC: Let somebody help you.
Ray: Yes, ma’am.

UHC: Where you ever afraid? Where you ever afraid anybody would ever try to bother you, or rob you, you know?
Ray: No. I never was afraid of being robbed. I wasn’t afraid of nobody bothering me, you know, everybody knew me. I always stayed to myself and mind my business. And I guess they knew that, that’s just not the man to play with. You know, I was never a threat to nobody, and a couple of time the kids, I guess my biggest fear and threat was from the little kids. You know they’d be out and around playing and not really knowing what they was doing would stumble across my camp and you know, tear it up. You know, just being kids. That’s happened 3 or 4 times. And then the police, a couple of times, run me away from the camp.

UHC: What was the reason that they ran you away?
Ray: Well, they were, they just…We’ve got a good police force here in Seneca, but there’s a few on there that think, you know, that they are just better than other people. He’d come by sometimes and shine his lights and stuff, at nighttime, and you know, nobody registered a complaint, it was always him saying “Okay, you can’t live here, you can’t do that,” but I think they got rid of him or something, and other than that nobody ever bothered me. Most people didn’t know where I lived. I’d never tell nobody. I wouldn’t let no one see me go off into the woods, and I had different ways I’d go all the time. One day I might go in on this side of the street, and then I might go in on that side, you know, and then sometimes I’d go in late at night. I had what I called a early morning system, some of it I built myself, and some it just came naturally, on three sides of me the other neighbors, I think the neighbors knew, those 3 families knew I was living in that house, but they all had dogs, and I was kind of like in the triangle there, and those dogs wouldn’t let no one come around, every time someone would come around, even walk down the street, those dogs would bark, day or night. Around the house I put plate glass, you know that sliding glass, and I’d put those around the house, you know, like at the entrance and stuff, and I’d cover them up with leaves, and if intruders did come they had to step on this glass and break that glass and make noise, and that would wake me up, so no one…no one ever came. No one ever bothered me except that one officer.

UHC: And there were no other homeless people around you, right?
Ray: Yeah, this man right here, next door.

UHC: Oh, he was out…was he in the same abandoned house that you were?
Ray: No, he was 2 blocks away. His story is probably better than mine. He had been doing it for over 10 years.

UHC: So you met Sherry, and Sherry offered you some advice and help, and then what direction, after you met Sherry, what direction did you take…how did you proceed to not being homeless anymore? She guided you through and what…
Ray: Well, I have a friend that owns the Oconee Antique in downtown Seneca, and off and on over the years, I had worked for him and his wife, they wasn’t always in the antique business, they used to be based on a hotel over on 123, and they used to own a car lot, and I worked for them part-time over the years. And Larry and his wife, they helped me a lot too. Larry, he would let me come in everyday and, you know, dust off the furniture, you know, and use the telephone, you know, as I wanted to, and call anywhere in the country I wanted to, you know, and he wouldn’t charge me one penny for it, so that was the way that I made contact with a lot of people, and that was the way I stayed in contact with Ms. Sherry. Sometimes, Ms. Sherry would find me here, or find me around the soup kitchen, and she’d know to call that number…

UHC: To be able to reach you.
Ray: Yeah.

UHC: So you worked with her, through a Friend, through Larry, that was helping you out, so you could use the phone and so forth.
Ray: Yeah. Larry and Mr. David McCuthy, and the people at the Seneca Presbyterian Church, they were all stepping into this thing about the same time with me, you know, I was getting help over here, and I was getting help over here, and, you know, it just, you know, it just all came together. You know with everybody’s help, you know, just…it just finally came together.

UHC: And then, when you got you paper work together with Sherry, you know, for the Upstate Homeless Coalition and so forth, you then were able to get this apartment, correct?
Ray: Yes, ma’am.

UHC: And you’ve been in here for about a week, is that right?
Ray: No, I’ve been in here since…I moved in on my birthday, November the 13th (2007).

UHC: Okay, so you’ve been here for almost a month?
Ray: Yeah, almost a month.

UHC: And what do you see yourself doing, say 3 to 5 years from now? What are your goals, what are you kind of thinking that you want to do with yourself?
Ray: Well, I was thinking the other night, I, uh, this is a good place, but it is not a place for someone to just pull up and want to stay, you know, for the rest of they life. I can do better, and I know I can do better, but I got to retrain myself, you know, for the day’s work, and I felt like, in about a year and a half, I think I’ll be on my feet then, and I’ll be saving me up some money and stuff, you know, to become fully independent on my own. I was thinking that I’d move out of here and give someone else the opportunity, because there is more of what ya’ll see around here. There’s a lot of homeless people.

UHC: So you think there is real need with the project that, Dan is our chairman, and this group of us that…there’s 8 churches involved in this to build Our Daily Rest, do you think there is a definite need for this in the Oconee and Seneca area?
Ray: Yes ma’am! And you see, not just in Seneca…in West Minister, Walhalla, Pendleton area, Clemson area. I know a lot of homeless people.

UHC: You do actually know a lot of people that are actually homeless?
Ray: Yes ma’am!

UHC: And don’t really have anywhere to go for any kind of help.
Ray: Well, I could show you five, right there on the next street over from here.

UHC: That are living homeless?
Ray: Yeah.

UHC: Are they in abandoned homes, or in tents, or…
Ray: Abandoned houses, tents…One lady and her husband, just the other night, I invited them over for supper, and I don’t have much to eat myself, and being a homeless person, we’re not really worried about a place to stay, our biggest concern is something to eat. Now, that may sound kind of strange, but I guess you can always find a place to lay down, on the park benches or, you know, behind a trash dumpster or something, so anyway, the man and lady came over Wednesday night, and we sat right here and we ate, and then we watched a movie on the T.V., so about 10 o’clock they decided to leave, and where they slept at, because they didn’t ask me to stay here, because I couldn’t let them stay no way, according to the rules and regulations, which I could have, but then the management would’ve found out about that and, you know, I’d be in trouble.

UHC: Correct.
Ray: They didn’t ask me to stay over, but I knew they didn’t have a place to stay, I felt bad, so when they left out of here, I fixed them some sandwiches, and they went right out to this trash dumpster over here, and they slept behind the trash dumpster. All night long…And the lady across the street there was taking her trash out about 5 o’clock and she seen them over there asleep, they had covered up with some cardboard boxes. I did not know that, if I had knew that they were that close, can I say this on film?

UHC2: Go ahead. If you don’t want to I’ll turn it off.
Ray: If you don’t mind turning it off, just for a minute.
[Camera is turned off]
Ray:…let it appear to people that they’re homeless, but they’re homeless.

UHC: And you said about 30 in the general area, Seneca and Pendleton, and Walhalla and West Minister.
Ray: Yeah, I know at least 30.

UHC2: You know 30.
Ray: I see at least 15 everyday.

UHC2: We have about a minute and a half.
UHC: Oh, so, I thank you, we do for sharing with us. And if there is anything you want to ask us, certainly feel free to do so. And we are thrilled that you have been able to get into some sort of transitional housing, and is there anything that you’d like to ask us about our facility or anything that you can thank of?
Ray: I think this is a good thing, you know, what ya’ll are doing and it won’t be a waste of the tax payer’s money. It will help a lot of people. Once ya’ll get it started and people around start seeing what’s going on, I believe, I believe that other people will pitch in and help out also.

UHC: We hope so.
Ray: So, I don’t think it will be a big loss…

UHC: No, it won’t be a loss, we know it’s going to happen..
Ray: Yes, ma’am.

UHC: It will happen, and we do thank you so much for taking your time to talk with us this morning, and we’re thrilled for you.
Ray: Thank you, ma’am.

UHC: Thank you!