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published: Friday, November 20, 2009
Unemployed
to homeless
Unemployed
to homeless
DAVID DONALD
Staff Writer
MASCOTTE -- Michael Nix sleeps on the porch.
Others camp out on the living room floor of the Faithful and True Emergency Homeless Shelter in Mascotte on State Road 50.
No one's complaining.
It's the only emergency homeless shelter in Lake County. They say they're happy to have a place to lay their heads at night.
But what they really want is a job.
Looking for a job, however, costs money -- money the shelter and its denizens don't have.
A group of them traveled together in a borrowed van to Workforce Central Florida's job fair last Wednesday in Leesburg.
"This is a traumatic experience," said Nix, a laid off-road construction supervisor who suffered a heart attack and had open heart surgery last June. "It's not that easy in these economic times. It's hard enough to find one person a job."
There are more than 700 people in Lake County that are homeless by the latest estimates. Unemployment and homelessness are linked. As the unemployment rate rises, so does the homeless rate.
Nix worked a steady road construction job for 25 years before his heart attack. He's been unemployed for more than a year. Now he can't find work and the Social Security Administration has turned him down for disability. He lost his car and his house. That means no transportation to job interviews and no mailing address to give prospective employers.
"It's been a nightmare," he said.
If it weren't for his six years of military service, Nix couldn't afford the $2,000 worth of medication he needs every month for his heart. The Veterans Administration picks up that tab.
A resident of the homeless shelter for only a week, Nix is now calling his roommates family. They eat together, talk together and look for work together.
"I used to drive by this place and never bat an eye," Nix said. "I never thought in a million years that I would be living here."
Now Nix has a different outlook on life and the homeless situation.
Nix said Lake County's only emergency homeless shelter lacks the vital services it needs to help the downtrodden pick themselves up and become productive citizens. The closest unemployment office is in Leesburg.
"Lake County doesn't care about homeless people," he said.
He said the county should be working to provide counselors to help the homeless with job placement.
First Baptist of Leesburg does have such a program in place, and the church is working to turn the Big Bass Motel on U.S. Highway 27 in Leesburg into an emergency homeless shelter for families. But that's of little help to the homeless group in Mascotte.
The Faithful and True Emergency Homeless Shelter needs a van to ferry its residents to and from job interviews and the grocery story. And the shelter needs help paying the rent.
The shelter is already three months behind in paying its rent, said Linda Hall, the shelter's pastor and founder.
"We've been struggling to pay the rent," said Hall. "It takes money to run a shelter and the only van we have only has two seats.
The van doesn't even belong to the shelter.
It's David Murrell's van.
Murrell has been homeless and out of work for the last five months. He slept in his van off and on for two weeks before coming to the shelter.
When they have gas to put in the van, he drives the shelter's residents to job interviews and other places they need to go.
"We burn up so much money and fuel searching for jobs," Murrell said. "It sucks. There's no work."
