People of Wednesday - Issue 1 - Scott Allen

This is a new series that I brainstormed months ago. I hope you enjoy it!

Eventually, this will take on an interview format, but I needed something for today, so….let’s run with who we know this time.

People fascinate me.

Not regular people. For some reason, I’m drawn to the outcasts…maybe because I sort of am one.

I didn’t fit in with the popular crowd in school.

I remember watching an episode of Locked Up in the early 2000s. If you’re not familiar with that show, it was a docuseries that showed life in various prisons across the United States.

There was a guy who got a couple of radio kits and model boat kits, and he build an electric guitar out of them. I was amazed. He could even play it through headphones so he didn’t both his cellmate.

I thought, “Wow, the talent and innovation that is wasting away in our prisons.”

I don’t necessarily sympathize with criminals, but I recognize people who haven’t had the same opportunities that I have.

We do so many things wrong.

Sure, we provide prisoners with education programs, but they are same programs we have designed to create compliant workers. Then we release them into a society where may employers won’t even hire you if you have a record. We release them with nothing and expect them to stay out of prison.

The Bible says in Hebrews 13, “Remember the prisoners as if chained with them…”

Is anyone doing that?

How I Met Scott

Because of my fascination, I find myself reading subreddits like /r/Homeless sometimes.

Eight months ago, I met Scott. In their infinite wisdom, Reddit has since removed the post, but I remember Scott saying that he wasn’t sure if he would make it through the night because it was so cold.

I posted back that I hoped he had survived the night and that I’d been thinking about him constantly since reading his post.

Thus began an interaction that I fully believe was orchestrated by God. Scott is actually currently in my hometown.

Scott is a talented wordsmith. I was immediately lured in by his words and the way he weaved them into intriguing stories from his life on the streets.

Scott’s circumstances of how he became homeless are tragic. In short, his wife and stepson beat him over the head for a small inheritance he’d received and left him for dead.

He suffered a traumatic brain injury which has made trying to rebuild his life very complicated.

As a woman of limited means, I have been, and still am, at a loss as to how to get Scott the ongoing help he needs.

The one thing I was able to help him do was publish his first book.

For several years, Scott lived in an abandoned house with the permission of the owner. He was recently thrown out of this space and is going through the struggles of trying to remain in a tent with record high temperatures and the police constantly trying to find a reason to keep him out.

It has been difficult to watch him try to navigate his hardships and be at a total loss as to how I can help him. I’m in the next town over, and my living situation doesn’t exactly allow housing random homeless men.

It’s times like this when I miss my dad the most because he would know what to do. He helped many homeless people over the years…perhaps that’s where I get the desire to help as well.

The church I grew up in has programs to help people like Scott, just as many other churches in the area do. There’s a problem though. For some reason, help from churches comes with requirements and red tape that people like Scott find difficult to comply with.

It’s funny, I don’t recall the Bible saying help the poor and needy who meet specific criteria.

Also, a good number of people like Scott have experienced trauma in the church, so going to the church for help and then getting met with demands is counterproductive.

So, why doesn’t he go to a shelter?

Shelters aren’t a home. You can’t come and go as you please. There are limits to how long you can stay and no real programs or plans to help you move beyond needing said shelter.

What about getting a job?

With a traumatic brain injury? Yeah, okay. Have you ever tried working with, much less living with, a TBI? Me either. I have Intracranial Hypertension, and that is hard enough.

Needless to say, I can’t imagine a more hopeless existence than the one Scott lives every day. How he wakes up every day and manages to put one foot in front of the other is nothing short of inspiring.

So, why is Scott featured in the first issue of People of Wednesday? Because he’s an amazing human being…not just because of all of the above, but because I’ve seen this man who has nothing help others however he can.

He sees people as people. He doesn’t look at them and see drug addicts and losers. This man who has been shown very little mercy from day to day, looks at others with empathy and care.

This post has a two-fold purpose:

1. If anyone out there knows of resources or programs that might help Scott find the help he needs to get on his feet, please let me know.

2. If you’d like to support Scott, read his stuff, and get to know what he’s about, check out his Ko-Fi page.

Scott’s dream is to open a shelter that helps people like him without ridiculous rules and requirements that make that impossible. I’d love to see that happen, but he has a long way to go before that can be a possibility.

Final Thoughts

Let’s start a conversation. I’m very much of the idea that more brains = better solutions. The attitude about homeless people in this country needs to change. Currently, they are criminalized, and that’s not right.

Most of us are one paycheck, or one bad situation from the streets ourselves. America is a country with prisons that are overflowing while abandoned properties dot our landscape. It’s time for better solutions.

If you have questions for Scott, post them in the comments.