Easy to say No

In his mid-30s, black and with a mental illness, David would hardly be the ideal "poster child" for an organization. When he is off his medication, which is pretty frequent lately, he can be scary. His rantings are often just on the edge of reality, so it can be tempting to ignore him and hope he will take his complaints somewhere else.

Still, we knew something funny was going on at his apartment. After talking with him a number of times about it, we were able to discern that he had not had running water for nearly a year. He had been hauling buckets of water up to his apartment to bath and flush the toilet. It turns out that the landlord was in foreclosure on the property and through a series of misunderstandings, the water service had been shut off. In the meantime, David had been faithfully paying his rent, hoping the situation would be resolved. He was also spending his own money to repair and renovate the apartment, and was consequently falling behind on his electric bill.

The situation finally came to a head, and David was told he would have to vacate the property; however, he didn't have any money for a security deposit or funds to pay off his past due electric bill. Even though Manna on Main Street would have to invest more than $1,000 to get David into a new apartment, we couldn't just look the other way. We are probably the only organization that could step in immediately and keep David from living on the street. We are hopeful that once he settles into his new place, he will return to his counselor and get back on his meds.