WISE — For the last nine years B., now 36, was a full-time live-in caretaker for his elderly father, getting by on the father’s Social Security benefits and other public assistance.
B.’s father died in September, leaving B. with a sizable funeral bill and no financial resources. Since his father’s death B. has eked out a means to survive on food stamps and “picking up pop cans” along roadside ditches.
“I’m barely hanging on by a thread,” he said. “I’m in such a financial hardship right now I’m about ready to lose everything I’ve got.”
That includes a home he said he and his father managed to get via a program through the Rural Area Development Administration and the Independent Center for Independent Living. B. pays a miniscule monthly payment on the home — a small but comfortable wood frame structure that is a far cry from his father’s crumbling family home where they formerly resided — but picking up pop cans is hardly a steady means to cover even the most lenient of mortgage payments.
Then there’s his father’s funeral expenses.
“Dad had just enough funeral insurance to pay part and I’ve got to pay off the other half, and it’s really put me in a hard spot,” he said. It will take a whole lot of aluminum cans and patience on the part of a mortician to settle the remaining funeral debt of under $4,000.
“I can’t find no work. I’m just to the point I need financial help just to live because when I lost my Dad I lost what we was living on,” he said. “The only thing keeping me going so far is food stamps, and for money I try to find odd jobs as I can, and mostly pick up cans.”
B. is as affable as can be yet socially withdrawn. He said he is uncomfortable around crowds, an individual where the saying “three is a crowd” most probably applies. He compensates for his social awkwardness, and fulfills his open-hearted nature, in his love for animals. B. volunteers for a local P.A.W.S. chapter, keeping orphan dogs and cats for the organization until they get adopted.
The chapter supplies the dog and/or cat food. B. supplies attention and care. On the day of the interview, a frisky blonde pup he called Butterscotch was due for a primping before being handed over to its new owners in the next day or so.
“She’s a bit stinky right now because she’s a pup and gets into everything she can get into. She’s a handful but that’s a good thing in a pup. I’ve got to get her bathed up and ready to get her adopted out,” he said. “I foster dogs and cats for P.A.W.S. of Southwest Virginia. I miss ’em when they go but I like to see ’em go to good homes where they’ll be happy and cared for real good. I love what I do with them. I really do.”
He said Social Services “helps me with my light bill, and I’ve been fortunate enough they’ve helped me with that, too. And they helped me get fuel assistance. That will start next month.”
B. said he would love to find a custodial or other equivalent position, even part time, to establish at least a minimal level of steady income. His social awkwardness likely plays a huge role in just asking around, though.
“It’s hard. It’s real hard. I just live day by day the best I can,” he said. “It’s been a hard go. It’s just been a rough go since dad passed. I just keep hoping something will turn up and in the meantime I just do odd jobs as I can find those, and picking up pop cans.”
The Times-News Rescue Fund raised a record $61,672 last year and is one of the few charitable campaigns where every penny donated goes directly to those in need in the form of food vouchers to help supplement larders for the needy during the holidays.
The number of families seeking assistance has risen each year. In 2008 the Rescue Fund assisted about 1,700 families and in 2009 and 2010, the number rose to over 1,900. This year the Salvation Army, one of the Rescue Fund’s partners, has a list of over 2,200 families who need help.
Tax-deductible donations can be made to the Times-News Rescue Fund at P.O. Box 479, Kingsport, TN 37662.