Ready, Willing & Able | The Doe Fund

I delegated the problem to George McDonald, tireless advocate for homeless people. George went directly to East 85th Street and talked the old-timer out of the bushes.

His name was Sidney Briggs. A flowing mane of white hair gave him a Moses-like look. He'd ended up in the street following eviction from a furnished room. The poor old guy was rattled by his ordeal, and it was unclear exactly why he'd gotten evicted. He may have been a drinking man, but so what?

Thanks to George McDonald's willingness to get involved, the old-timer soon was put in contact with a niece he hadn't seen in decades, who lived in Massachusetts. She and her husband drove to New York and picked him up. I was there for the teary reunion and wrote a column about it.

This was back in the mid-1980s. A couple of years ago I got word that Sidney Briggs died after a decade among loved ones in Massachusetts.

McDonald and I were reminiscing about this yesterday. George is a Good Samaritan for the duration.

His dedication to homeless folks never falters. Some 300 former street people are now enrolled in Ready, Willing and Able, a work and rehabilitation program he established in 1990. They live in the program's facilities in Harlem, Bedford Stuyvesant and Washington, D.C., and toil for $5.50 an hour cleaning streets, doing repairs, cooking and staffing a direct mail operation.

And some 500 alumni of Ready, Willing and Able have gone on to better-paying jobs and their own apartments, McDonald told me. He made a point of saying that, while he takes great pride in his program, much of the credit for its success goes to 12-step groups that many of those enrolled attend religiously.

It was good to catch up with George McDonald. I was prompted to call him yesterday after a conversation with a homeless man. This fellow, Ernest, lives in a cardboard box in midtown Manhattan -- I won't say exactly where, because a homeless man is entitled to his privacy, such as it is.

Sitting in a pile of belongings by his cardboard box, a wool cap pulled down to ears, Ernest, I've noticed, won't ask for a handout but will gratefully accept one. There's a sadness about him that makes passers-by want give him $1 or $2 with a "God bless you." He looks amply fed and he smokes one filter-tip cigarette after another. His blank stare suggests that Ernest belongs to what must be a legion of mentally ill persons who, without therapy or medication or loving care, wind up homeless.

He answers questions but doesn't volunteer anything.

"Don't you want to go to a shelter?"

"I don't like the shelters."

"Did you used to work?"

"Oh, yes"

"Where?"

"Schrafft's. The Automat."

"Where are you from?"

"Kentucky."

"Any family there?"

"Oh, yes."

"Ever think of going home?"

"Oh, no."

Later, I told George McDonald about Ernest. George said there are residential programs for mentally ill homeless persons in New York, but not enough to accommodate all those in need.

With budget surpluses piling up and the cold weather coming, now is the time to address the plight of poor souls such as Ernest.