Homeless Voice; My Friend Named John

W

ell it has been just about ten years now that Cosac, Helping People in America and The Homeless Herald (now known as the Homeless Voice) have been serving this community. This story you are about to read, “My Friend Named John” was written by Robert George of the Sun -Sentinel and printed on December 19th 1999. I call him Bob George because I spent over a month with him, day after day 24/7. I showed him a different side of homelessness and his article introduced me to Lois Cross, a woman who read his long story about John. You see when she read the article she said it made her cry, but she also thanked God for the article because a family member had recently expressed strong negative feelings about our selling the newspaper. She contacted Bob to reach me and Cosac and eventually came in for a tour and to volunteer a few days a month. However… things changed. She kind of lost her mind… in a good way. She got involved with the clients and the shelter and spent more and more time here and less time at home, so she moved in and now works 20 hours a day, seven days a week by helping us run this place. She gave up her home and her queen size bed and now sleeps between the file

Dear Readers, Please keep our friend Cathy in your prayers.

-Homeless Voice

How’s My Vending?

Call (954)

925-6466 X101

cabinets and the fax machine and of course let’s not forget the change that we collect daily. She sleeps in what we call the Oval Office. The office is sectioned off into three “rooms”, but the sleeping quarters is only about 10 X 10 which is where our single beds are. The rest of the office, besides our desks and file cabinets, is all our emergency supplies, communications systems for disasters, defibrillators, John’s clothes, copy machines, medicine and what ever else we need to run this place. We do have a refrigerator but her nice stove she used to cook on at home is now an electric skillet. Her earthly possessions are in Office Depot storage boxes in storage and what she does have here is folded on a plastic utility shelf.

Not only does she run Cosac but she also runs my life. I am a little too busy to figure out how many clean pairs of underwear I have or in some cases don’t have. Every day she makes up my gym bag so I can go to the YMCA to take my shower and she knows that this is my only peace out of here and, believe me, that one hour a day is like a yearly vacation to me. Last month she mixed up our pants and packed hers in my bag instead of mine, and they did not go over my large, some say fat, rear end. Thank God my XXL tee shirt covered me as I exited the Y. When I had meningitis she took the necessary steps with the rest of the staff to keep the show running. When I was in critical care she was really torn, she said. She wanted to be in Jacksonville with

Sean Cononie (Top Right), almost a millionaire and just 35, works 20 hours a day finding homes for the homeless, hope for the hopeless. And when he loses faith, he turns to the neediest one of all to restore it.

(John Below Picture)

(Continued on page 6)

S

ean Cononie, almost a millionaire and just 35, works 20 hours a day finding homes for the homeless, hope for the hopeless.

And when he loses faith, he turns to the neediest one of all to restore it.

Johnny's feet are black again; his stomach, bare beneath his unbuttoned shirt, is shiny with

sweat; and he's swearing, which he never does, and threatening to leave if Sean doesn't back off about him needing a shower.

"I don't wanna be tossed around by anyone," Johnny says,

Most Americans are “Two Paychecks” away from being homeless. Help the shelter stay alive. We are trying to pay the mortgage off! To help, please send a check or money order to: COSAC Foundation Burn That Mortgage Campaign P.O. Box 292-577 Davie, Fl 33329

and then he leans back on the couch in Room 8 of Sean Cononie's homeless shelter in Hollywood and folds his arms across his chest.

Sean swivels around to look into Johnny's face. Leave?

Is he serious? Sean knows that Johnny McCormick, who, at 47, had long ago fried his brain on drugs, would be lost without the shelter. And Sean would be a little lost too, since he has de(Continued on page 4)

The Voice of the Homeless

Page 2

HAPPY NEW YEAR

FRIENDS OF THE HOMELESS For just $15.00 a month you can keep a homeless family off the streets for a day.

Please make check payable to: COSAC Foundation Friends of the Homeless.

Please include on memo what name should appear in paper.

Mail check to: Friends of the Homeless, P.O. Box 292-577 Davie, FL 33329

Your Name Will Be Printed in Our Paper Every Month • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Donald Peterson The Cononie Family The Targett Family Patrick Helings John Bendor The Preston Family Jake Forest Lisa Gram The Jameson Family In Loving Memory of Uncle Joe & Nana Shannon Brooks Jose Rodrigues Lisa Cebrat The Bowe Family Pakita Price The Stone Family Nana Sullivan The Watsons Sean Cononie Sally Lister Judith Kelly Arnold Goldstein Martha Roman The Baptista Family Jacob Robinson Julie Stokes De De Hupp John Criasia Daniel Harrison The Martinez Family Amanda Reynolds Dolores R. Cerra Bob Hall Tressie W. Osborne Clark Rogers The Savir Family Peter Richman Richard McHenry Stevie Nix Corinne James The Browns Chris Sanchez Hugo DeCarpintini Mario Yuio Richard Friedman Diane Friedman Uylna Quadrino Ginny Scott Arnold Reemer In Loving Memory of Peter Sullivan Maryann Springer Elaine Snaith Marshal Bugin Keith Yude Steve Murrey Young Anderson

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Bruce Wethersoon Isabelle J. Henry Raul Cardenas M.D. Wendy Bryan Jacqueline McCarty Albert J Taragowski Darla King Paula King Richard Gomez Anthony Ralph Jennifer Hicky Timothy Lukehard Thomas Rua The Jackson Family Justin Rowan Mary Green Morris Grazi Marvin Shatze Ronald Shafer Vance Gunn Adam Staler Allen Yancy Jimmy Daniels Mel Blount Carol Lockette Joe Golden Anna Marye Levier Magan Narduzzi Andre Johnson Antione Collins Eric Harrison Jessica Padilla Sheldon Jones Carlo Harrison Jason Emrik Amber Rowan Jackie Johnson Ricky Cambell Dorr’e Terry

• • • • •

Samual Manery Marilyn Vokish Jenny Curic Amy Curic Lisa Jackson Jim Johnson

• • • • •

Bobby Neal Erica Fulton Darren Nolf Erica Sanclair Steve Dillan Dallan Michele King Bobby Ore Casandra Thomas Mark Faber Nichole Faber Kevin Britt

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Dan Gilcert

Tara Hunter

• • • • • • • • • • •

• • • • •

The Cable Family The Maione Family Barbara Strong Grace Marth Regla J Ferrer The Baldwin Family Horace Gracie Russell J. Ferguson Marjorie G. Rhines Jamie F. Flores In Loving Memory Of Thomas Gasbarro Cathy and Kids The Davis Family Graham R. Mitchell Essential Oil Healthline Amparo L. Korey John’s Plumbing Service Thank You Winn Dixie Adrienne and Mike Ms. Marilyn Smith Albert J. Taragowski Ruth C Grey Mike Cross Tamara Southard Raul Cardenas MD PA Al and Annie Hurricane Prevention Inc Danny and George The Thompson Family OTD Messenger, Inc M. Smith Yorick and Bonita Parrica Lee Russ & Delores B Mordon Robert Jesus Llanes Comet Couriev Proietto Family In Memory of Billy Corwin Josh Searles Patricia Lee Russ Delores B Mordon Mrs. Jenkins Everglades Moon, Covenant of Goddess, Elibet Hanson Judy B. Pascarella John Gaeta Michael R. Prokop, Jr. Jackie M. McCarty In Memory of Charles Horton In Memory of William F. Judge Todd Palgon The Morabito Family Todd Palgon Holly J. Andrus

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Lois Cross In Loving Memory of Florence & Nat Popkin Tailored Advertising, Inc Claudia K. Tapolow Margie Jones In memory of Wesley H. Woodall Maria M. Riveiro Gottlieb & Blair Family Pioneer Middle School Youth Crime Watch Rhenals-Mei Family The Strikowski family Margie Jones & Friends Ronald Prescia In Memory of Brian Groleau Laura Flash Jacqueline M. McCarty The Herrmann Family The Monserrate Family Madeline Butera Jennifer S. Nickel Marilyn R. Smith David Thawley On Behalf of Matthew Lambert Mustafa Mehmet Gokoglu In Memory of Scott Paul Cooper Robert and Ruth Baal In Memory of Melba DeSanto In Memory of My Mother Pearl McCann, Love Teresa Barbara Desanto Leah and Ray Michael & Michale Rhett Marie Sutera Floyd and Luana Coats Doug Boucher Family Kevin Jones Dorothy Griffith Family In Loving Memory of Kris Soltan Kevin “KJ” Jones Douglas Boucher The Swartout's Ivonne Fernandez The Verny & Stewart Families In Loving Memory of Frances Klein The Herrmann Family John C. Burt In Memory of C.T.R. The Kunicki Family

YOUR NAME HERE

Did you know?

• You can setup payroll deduction through your employer to support the COSAC Foundation’s Homeless Voice • Your company might even match your donation • See your human resource or department manager

Page 3

Volume VIII, Issue 1

HOMELESS VOICE It’s that time of year again, when most of us make a New Year’s Resolution. This is a list of do’s or don't's that we hope will change our lives for the better...but soon forget about, myself included. But, we promise ourselves that this year will be different.

With that in mind, I post a challenge, mainly to myself.

This year I will keep my “Resolution” in a visible place. This year I will be a better person than last. This year I will not have to wait until the beginning of a year to make those changes, I will start now and continue.

-Mark Targett LETTERS TO THE EDITOR SEND TO:

P.O. BOX 292-577 DAVIE, FLORIDA 33329 FAX TO: 954-926-2022 EMAIL: info@homelessvoice.org ALL DONATION REQUESTS IN THE HOMELESS VOICE FOR ANY CHARITY ARE ADVERTISED IN CONJUNCTION WITH THIS WORDING A COPY OF THE OFFICIAL REGISTRATION AND FINANCIAL INFORMATION MAY BE OBTAINED FROM THE DIVISION OF CONSUMER SERVICES

BY CALLING TOLL-FREE IN THE STATE 1-800-435-7352 REGISTRATION DOES NOT IMPLY ENDORSEM ENT, APPROVAL, OR RECOMMENDATION BY THE STATE THANK YOU FOR HELPING THE HOMELESS

H OME LESS

V O IC E

Cost of paper $.25

To reach us call

954-925-6466

HOMELESS HOTLINE FOR PLACEMENT

954-491-BEDS

Need flyers passed out or other temp labor?

CALL 954-920-1277

WHY CA LL A DAY LABOR C OMPA NY AN D S P EN D LAR GE AMOUN TS OF MO NEY

Rates Start at $5.95 per hour Yards, leaf raking, painting, flyers pass ed out, car was hed and etc.

Call our c ontrac tor referral line Call us and we will get you the pers on to do the job muc h les s than calling someone else

Only $5.95 per hour

M ai l to : H o m e les s V oic e P O B ox 2 92 5 7 7 D a v ie , F l 33 32 9

Go To

C u t t h e c e rti fic a te a n d se n d it w ith a c h ec k o r m o n e y o r d e r f or $50 $2 4 NAME

A DDR E SS

24 Issues

We Need Mobile Homes for Our Disaster Relief Program: Call the shelter 954-925-6466

On our home page, click on sponsors, then go to affiliates.

F LO R ID A A UTO IN SU R AN C E IN C .

6 7 4 0 T A F T S T R E E T, H O L L Y W O O D

F RE E T A G R E N EW A L SER V IC E FEE W ITH W R I T TE N P O L I C Y

L OC A TE D A C R OS S F R O M W IN N -D I XIE O N T AF T S T R E E T

W E H AV E M AN Y TYPES OF IN SU R A N CE FO R A L L Y O U R N EED S

9 5 4 -9 6 3 -7 3 3 3

The Voice of the Homeless

Page 4

HAPPY NEW YEAR

(Continued from page 1)

tered with phones, an ashtray cided he wants to take care of spilling ashes and three packs of Prozac someone found in the Johnny forever.

There is no smile on trash. Cases of cranberry juice Johnny's face, and he turns away line one wall from floor to ceilwhen Sean keeps looking at him, ing. Paper cups and cookie jars and so Sean softens his tone, uses separate the soda money from the cigarette money from the rent baby talk.

"Why don't you get wet in money from the street collection the shower?" Sean asks, very money.

From the clutter, he picks gently this time. "We'll go out to up the list of today's new arrivals. din-din."

Lois, the mugging victim, "Well," Johnny says, uncrossing his arms, "if I take a with open wounds on her skinny knees from the dragging she took shower I need pants."

"I just gave you pants yes- though an alleyway.

Tom, who likes to tell peoterday. I took off my own pair ple he is bisexual. and gave them to you."

Joe, with a perforated ul"I might shower in the fucer. ture if I get a sharper razor."

All people who are too old, Sean smiles. His cell or too sick, or too phone rings.

He clicks it “Helping people came troublesome for other homeless open and listens while natural to him. In his shelters to bother with, and too rolling his teens, he stopped at poor for the hoshead around in a circle to every accident he ever pitals to take care loosen the saw, pulling one baby of.

It's sort of a knot in his neck. from a burning car and rogue shelter, this place Sean T h e bringing another back Cononie has set hospital is aside for them. It calling again. to life with CPR.” is made up of Is there room for one more? That makes 10 and pink bungalows that were once an Army barracks and are now a it's still lights out.

"It's gonna be a helluva rundown apartment complex in a night, " he says, and then he tidy downtown neighborhood. To hangs up. Patting Johnny on the pay the rent, it sends its people back, he lifts himself up from the out to beg for money. It turns no couch and heads down the well- one away. And it seems to grow worn path through the patch of attached to the most needy, the trees and the gap in the chain-link ones who will almost certainly fence and to the stairs that lead to end up back on the streets without its help. Even if one of them Penthouse 4.

Sean anchors himself in breaks the rules, even if one of the chair behind an old desk clut- them refuses to take a shower for

“Help Feed Our Sheep” The Homeless Voice is looking for churches to volunteer for feeding the homeless. Please Call Mark at 954-410-6275

“Sean wants his shelter to always be the sort of place that doesn't pretend every single person has the ability to make it on his own, the sort of shelter where people like Johnny never have to leave at all.”

10 days straight, The Corporation of Sean Anthonie Cononie (COSAC) doesn't let him go without a fight.

At 35, Sean is wealthy, a millionaire almost. And he doesn't know why, when he could do whatever he wanted with his life, he spends his time here, 20 hours a day, seven days a week, here among the rejects. It makes no sense, other than it's important to help people, especially people who really need help, and most especially, Johnny.

When someone at the shelter gets drunk or high again, or when someone dies or goes back to the street, Sean knows that Johnny will still be there, probably refusing to wear a belt and pulling his pants up with his left hand, or maybe holding the newspaper upside down and pretending to read it, or saying one of those funny things, like he did the other night at the ice cream shop.

On most nights, he takes in more people than any other shelter in the county. He wants to take in even more, shopping around to buy a building of his

own, applying for grants, while at the same time trying to figure out ways to run the shelter without government money and all the rules that would come with that.

Sean wants his shelter to always be the sort of place that doesn't pretend every single person has the ability to make it on his own, the sort of shelter where people like Johnny never have to leave at all.

And so he has fewer rules and more of the classes where homeless people go to learn how to balance a checkbook and make a grocery list. Instead, those without disability checks to contribute to the rent can either join the day labor pool digging ditches or they can take one of Sean's plastic cookie jars and one of his red, white and blue "Helping People in America" Tshirts.

Hollywood Boulevard, or Andrews Avenue, or Arvida Parkway. At rush hours across the county, Sean's people wait for the lights to turn red and then, ID badges dangling, they walk among the rows of cars, their jars (Continued on page 7)

My Computer People, Inc (954) 563-1601 Repairs • Upgrades • Service Networking • Printer Repair

3553 North Dixie Highway Oakland Park, Fl 33334 Email: info@mycomputerpeople.biz Advantage Communications, Inc. is a proud supporter of The Cosac Foundation "Excellence in Radio"

Page 5

Volume VIII, Issue 1

HOMELESSVOICE

S

haring your wealth with the community and supporting a cause that you feel strongly about have always been important to you.

You might hesitate to make an outright gift, though, because you may need the income generated by your assets to further personal ands family financial goals. You might also have reservations about giving away assets, because doing so will reduce the size of your estate that will ultimately go to your heirs.

Preserving wealth through maximizing deductions and maximizing taxable income is a goal shared by many Americans. Unfortunately, the Tax Reform Act of 1986 wiped out many popular tax-planning strategies and, thus, your ability to save on taxes is much more limited today.

There is a planning tool, however, that enables you to make a substantial gift now that will benefit one or more of your favorite charitable causes after death. It is called a Charitable Remainder Trust and it allows you to make a gift of assets to charity while receiving lifetime annual income and immediate tax advantages. By using this tool you can benefit yourself, your family and your community. Isn’t it better to give a little….and gain a lot?

Split Giving There are numerous options available to you in making a charitable gift. You may make a gift of cash, property or even life insurance.

You may make a gift that is split between a charitable and a noncharitable beneficiary. A split gift is distinguished from other types of charitable gifts in that it can provide income advantages for you, your family and the charity. The Charitable Remainder Trust, the Charitable Lead Trust and the Pooled Income Trust provide flexibility in making a gift of this type.

Asset Replacement Even though your family may receive a variety of current tax and income benefits through split giving, the size of the estate ultimately passing to your heirs may be substantially reduced. Life insurance can be a valuable tool in asset replacement.

The tax savings produced by the charitable deduction and the income generated by the charitable trust can be used to pay premiums on the life insurance policy. The proceeds of the policy can be used to replace the value of the gifted assets. In this way, your estate can be kept intact for the benefit of your family.

Planned Giving Can Work For You If your goal is to give something back to the community and benefit your family as well, Planned Giving is for you. By sharing your wealth and making a substantial charitable gift, you can make a difference and be remem-

Chris Nader 5900 N. Andrews Ave suite 800 Ft. Lauderdale, Fl 33309 954-331-5100 x5087 cnader@metlife.com

bered for it. Through Planned Giving you can select an intelligent way to make a gift that will accomplish all of your objectives.

Planned Giving Will Enable You To: • Benefit a religious, social, community or cultural cause that is important to you by making a substantial gift that is receivable after death.

• Save money that would ordinarily go to the government in income, estate and gift taxes and, instead, use those dollars to benefit both you and your family.

• Supplement your pension plan with a steady stream of retirement income.

• Avoid capital gains tax by donating appreciated assets to charity and receive lifetime income benefits for yourself and your family.

• Obtain a substantial federal income tax deduction today.

It is never too late to get started! Contact your Representative today to learn about the details, including the many options available to you through Planned Giving. GIVE A LITTLE…GAIN A LOT! For MetLife Financial Services representatives: Metropolitan Life Insurance Company 200 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10166 For New England Financial representatives: New England Financial is the service mark for New England Life Insurance Company; 501 Boylston Street; Boston, MA; 02116.

To start today contact your Met Life Rep Chris Nader 954-920-9275 (see above ad)

The Voice of the Homeless

Page 6

HAPPY NEW YEAR

(Continued from page 1)

HELP PAY OFF OUR MORTGAGE

me, but she knew her place was here doing We need just what she knew I needed and wanted her to do 34,634 people to send in a check for $20.00, and that was to make sure that Cosac continOr ued to exist. I have always told her that when Sean Cononie is gone, Cosac should be stand- 13,854 people to send in a check for $50.00, ing and that we built Cosac to stay in exisOr tence forever. So after I woke up and she told 6,927 people to send in a check for $100.00, me the steps she had taken to protect Cosac, I Or told her she could come and give me a briefing and help me recuperate. Could you imag- 693 people to send in a check for $1,000, Or ine that some stranger who read Bob’s article Just one wonderful person or business to send now was in control of Cosac because of the a check for the entire $692,670.00 passion she felt after reading about John and Remember the donation is tax deductible!! meeting John? That is why I have fallen in Please send your checks to: love with the story Bob did. He was an outThe COSAC Building Fund sider looking in at us and he wrote about what P.O. Box 292-577 he felt as a professional and because, in his eyes, he saw this place as people who took Davie, Florida 33329 care of a person like John. It gave others the We do thank you passion in their heart to come in and join us here and help run the place. Now Lois is like discussed with my doctor about my trying to get a fixture around here and you have to pry her back to a full time work week. He agreed that away from her desk to leave the building for perafter Christmas I could try my best. I miss sonal time. it. Even though I am not currently working I do I still talk to the reporter when I need to live there and I do get to spend a lot of time with do a realty check. At times it becomes so stressful John. that I sometimes do want to just close it all up but Again we are at our ten year anniversary then I look into the faces of these people and realize that without this place they would be lost. and I am now 41 years of age and John is 53. What can I tell you about these years? They Then of course even the ones who come to us for have been the best years of my life no matter just a few days would become a chronic homeless what. It is true that I am a walking heart attack person if our beds were not available on a minute’s notice. When it really gets bad for me I stare and this January for my New Year’s resolution I will be really starting the Sean Cononie makeinto Johnny’s face and sometimes I even start to over. I have gained so much weight from the stercry, realizing that this place gave me a real good oids. I smoke too much and it is not good. So I friend, the best present that God has ever given ask you to help me with prayer to get my life manme, and that is Johnny. He is so the most special, ageable again. I know that we promised you an innocent, cutest, best person in the world. He reupdate on my makeover but because of the last minds me so much of Jesus. I decided that we three hospital admissions and surgery I only should run this story (the one the Sun-Sentinel printed) in our paper to give all our new readers a gained more weight. So we start over today for my New Year’s resolution. What I ask of you is chance to get a little history about us, about me, simple. Pick a resolution and try your hardest to and about how we started and of course about my complete it. Don’t pick one too hard but pick one friend named John. If you think you would like to that you are capable of doing. come and visit us, please be sure to ask to meet You may want to make a New Year’s John and you, too, will be touched by his softness resolution to come by and see my present from and his charm. You really will. Sometimes I think God really put him here as my peace, as God, John McCormick. I swear he is the best person in the world. If you are depressed my relaxation therapy and allows me to love him come by and see him. If you are happy come by with all my heart. Some people say that I am and see him. If you are terminally ill come by and crazy, even with my being out sick and with so many surgeries, that I should be leading a different see him, you may feel just a little more peace in your heart, I have seen it happen, it’s no lie. And life; I don’t work anywhere like I did before beyou know that peace inside is healing! cause of the meningitis. In the next month or two We are still working on fixing the shelI am going to try to go back to my full 20 hour work day, seven days a week, if I can do it. We ter after the hurricanes we experienced. I am still working on doing the tax returns that we are very have suffered a lot since I was in the coma and I

late on because of my going in and out of the hospital. The IRS is not too happy with me but they will get over it because that’s how it’s been for the last ten years. We are still trying our best to pay off the mortgage and we really do need your help. We did lose some of our major donors, but I think it is because a lot of people really had a lot of damage from hurricane Wilma…but we will bounce back very soon.

Our Burn the Mortgage Campaign still exists and we need your help more than ever. Please remember to send in your check to the address below and you will help us to get one step closer to paying off this mortgage. Please also remember to pray for Cathy who is very sick and we need all the prayers we can get for her and for us. I ask you to stop doing what you are doing right now and ask God to heal her from her Cancer. Please God heal her and Lord let the researchers find a cure for all cancer for all people.

Oh I almost forgot. Please make this New Year’s resolution a very special one by sharing this issue of the Homeless Voice with someone who does not like the homeless or who does not like street vending. Remember there are a lot of people and city politicians who do not like us out there in the streets, so share this issue with them. By the way, the city politicians who do not want the newspaper vendors selling their papers in their city are the first cities to call us when their police get a call that there is a homeless person sitting on a bus bench for a few days. They don't want us in the street but they want us to take their homeless out of their city streets and bring them home to us. I guess you could call that a very big test for us. Either way, we have to take them because politically bad deeds should not affect the homeless person. Talk about Nerve! And believe me it angers me so much when they arrest our vendors and then a few hours later their dispatch calls us telling us that their zone unit is bringing a homeless person to us.

-Sean Cononie

The Homeless Voice sells approx 80,000 papers per month. This month we ask you, our supporters to send in $10. If everyone participates that normally purchases a paper; we will be able to pay the mortgage off this month. Please if you can find it in your heart to help us in our endeavor. Please send a check or money order to: COSAC Foundation BURN That Mortgage Campaign P.O. Box 292-577 Davie, Fl 33329

Page 7

Volume VIII, Issue 1

HOMELESSVOICE

kids.

Helping people came natustretched out for change.

Jose, the first of the collec- ral to him. In his teens, he tion crew chiefs to finish this stopped at every accident he ever day, comes into Penthouse 4 a saw, pulling one baby from a few minutes after Sean. He plops burning car and bringing another down on the couch, plunks a back to life with CPR. He was plastic cookie jar on the carpet even a bit stubborn about helping people and doing the right thing, and picks out the dollar bills.

Della is drinking other like it was the only thing, the people's soda again, he says, only choice. He actually sought without looking up from the out old ladies to help cross the street, found homes for stray cookie jar.

Sean rolls his head. He dogs and, when that didn't seem looks down at the bed list, as- enough, he made sandwiches to signs Lois to No. 11, Tom to No. hand out to homeless people he 17, Joe to No. 10, and the rooms might come across.

In his 20s, he got a halfat 2707 Lincoln St. quickly fill million dollar up. worker's comp settleS e a n had prayed “But the best part ment after he slipped fell at his job as a once to have a of the night came and store security guard, child of his when Liz Taylor rupturing disks in the own. Now he neck and back. He has dozens of them without said ‘each and every invested the money in even having to one of you’ were do- stocks just as the market took off and get married, ing a tremendous then watched his which is good grow so fast because dating amount of good.” portfolio that he could buy a and courtship Lexus, a Rolex take up a lot of time. And even before the shelter watch, and his own house in his own hometown with a swimming he was too busy for romance. pool and Jacuzzi in the back Quick to help He grew up in Hollywood, yard.

He even had enough the youngest son of an airline mechanic who coached all of his money to write a $60,000 check Little League teams and a mother just so he could fly out to Caliwho stayed at home to raise the fornia for Liz Taylor's birthday (Continued from page 4)

party. It was a fund-raiser for her AIDS foundation and he found himself climbing out of a limousine in a tuxedo, chatting up with one beauty, sipping champagne with another.

But the best part of the night came when Liz Taylor said "each and every one of you" were doing a tremendous amount of good. That had to mean him, too.

And he felt just so elated and so proud and he realized the best part of his good life came when he was being stubborn again about doing the right thing.

He flew home and filed the papers to start his nonprofit charity, naming it after himself. Not one to think much about the why and the what next of things, he simply started stuffing the trunk of his Lexus full of sandwiches, driving down to the slums of Overtown and handing them out to homeless people.

That seemed like a good idea. After all, God must have put the homeless here on Earth to give people like him, people with everything, an opportunity to do something sacred. What was it that Jesus said in the Bible? Sean could never get the words exactly right, just the meaning. What was it? If you feed the hungry, if you feed the best of mankind, you're feeding me, too?

The Answer Man Meals are served out of Room 16, he tells the newcomers. No gourmet meals, but donated doughnuts for breakfast, bologna sandwiches for lunch and macaroni and cheese with hot dogs and beans for supper.

Sean rents five bungalows worth of beds, small buildings in two parallel rows separated by a littered courtyard. And behind one row, separated by the chain (Continued on page 8)

The Voice of the Homeless

Page 8

HAPPY NEW YEAR

(Continued from page 7)

link fence with the gap in it, in the two-story white complex where Penthouse 4 is, Sean has even more beds.

Beds for 79. In a pinch, beds for 85. In a real pinch, 89.

And when the 90th comes, he somehow digs up a 90th bed.

The place gets so crowded sometimes, with people sitting on the cement stoops, bumming cigarettes at the gazebo, watching cartoons in their living rooms, making piles of aluminum cans to sell to the recycling company.

And stopping Sean.

They're always stopping Sean as he tramps from bungalow to bungalow, from problem to problem, this curly red-haired man with a doughboy face, muscular shoulders and thick hands that pat them on the back, tussle their hair and massage their shoulders.

He has the answer to whatever the question might be.

No, it doesn't matter that you went on vacation, he told a man one day earlier this fall, you were still supposed to pay the rent. And to another: Just because you weren't driving the car doesn't mean you didn't have to make the payments. Wear nice clothes to court, he says to a third, but

not so nice that it looks like you're sucking up. The normal practice in America is for people to work an eight-hour day, he told a labor crew that called in at noon to complain, "we're getting tired."

He keeps track of their doctors appointments, hands out their medications, tells them what to say to their shrinks and social workers, to their judges and probation officers, their mothers and fathers.

Sure they are using him, but they are needing him too, and none so much as Johnny.

The very least of the least of mankind. Johnny, who smokes five packs of cigarettes a day, whose disability check costs taxpayers $500 a month, who volunteers for nothing, who produces nothing, accomplishes nothing, aspires to nothing.

Junkie, human trash, that's how Sean figures Johnny must appear to other people. To him though, Johnny is the cutest one of all, "the cutest little thing, "in fact. And Johnny is a saint, very very close to God. Why? Because Johnny never lies, never talks to impress people, and couldn't if he tried. He can't pretend anything.

He is a broken-down walk-

Support the Homeless Voice Purchase Home Depot and/or Lowe’s Gift and Shopping Cards through us!

We accept Credit Cards. The gift cards can be picked up at a location near you.

Call 954-325-7326

Left, John and Sean Cononie in the hallway of the main shelter in Hollywood. John has been at the other shelters we have but he likes this one the best. ing bag of needs, a sack of sacred opportunities.

Sometimes, when Johnny and Sean sit next to each other on the couch in Room 8, Sean asks Johnny where he came from.

He was born in Massachusetts, Johnny tells him. But though he has tried to recall that particular day of being born, well, it happened a long time ago and he just can't. He was the son of a druggist. He went to a reform school where a big hand made the boys line up in a row and then swooped down, slapping all of them all at once. He

did drugs, too many drugs, and then, about 20 years ago, he began to travel.

Not too long ago, he hitchhiked all the way from Florida to Paris. Had a nervous breakdown or something like that. Not sure how he got back, floated down, yeah, on Eastern Airlines, that's it, and Sean found him when he got here.

Johnny gives away his clothes. He laughs at almost anything, a soft laugh that barely makes it past his beard. Says please and thank you and you're (Continued on page 9)

Shop and Help the Homeless: 4 easy steps

1– Go to www.HomelessVoiceMall.com 2– Bottom left frame find "choose an organization to shop for"; fill in Homeless Voice and click "find organization" 3– Top of middle frame will show "homeless voice shelter" link; click on link 4– Just go shopping, you can use the search, or store directory. All stores show what percentage of the purchase goes to Homeless Voice. You'll notice the percentages are higher because you now get 75% of the profit instead of 50%.

Advantage Communications, Inc. is a proud supporter of The Cosac Foundation "Excellence in Radio"

Page 9

Volume VIII, Issue 1

HOMELESSVOICE

(Continued from page 8)

welcome at all the right times.

He calls nothing of this world his own, except for a single possession, a small blue blanket that he holds onto each night when he goes to sleep. He has had it for years and has never washed it and yet it doesn't smell.

Even now in the midst of Johnny's longest showerless streak ever, the blue blanket has no smell. Johnny does though, and people are starting to complain.

A gentle push All the beds are filled and the sun has long set upon the pink bungalows and Sean is alone in Penthouse 4 with Jenny Scott, who was Principal of the Year once up north, and then she had some family problems and then she was a homeless woman in South Florida and now she is Sean's assistant.

"Am I pushing Johnny too hard?" he asks her.

"I could smell him all the way across the courtyard," she says.

"I really don't want him to leave again."

The last time Johnny left,

Sean had half the shelter out looking for him for two straight days. He was covered with sand fleas when they found him by the beach and Sean had to put on rubber gloves and scrub his body from head to toe.

"It's up to you, Sean," Jenny says, going through the door to the back room where her bed is. "It's up to you."

Well, it's important for Johnny to keep clean, Sean tells himself after she shuts the door, and not just for everyone out there having to smell him, but for himself, too.

Sean tallies the last of the cookie jars. About $500. Some days the cookie jars fill up with as much as $1,000 and some months the pennies and dollar bills add up to $20,000, almost enough to pay the rent, and buy the gas and the medications for people without insurance, and the hundreds of packs of bologna in Sean's refrigerator back at his house, where he rarely gets to use the Jacuzzi anymore.

Midnight comes and goes with Sean still awake and scanning through the proof sheets of the first edition of the new shelter newspaper. He plans on selling

As you look in to John's eyes you can see how peaceful he really is. When ever someone meets John the first thing they say is "look at these blue eyes."

The Homeless Herald at churches and on street corners.

"I'm Homeless, But Not Lazy," is one headline. The paper has some poems, a few ads (not nearly enough) and, on Page 6, Sean's own article, "My Friend Named John."

Who still needs to take a shower. Sean resolves as he drives home, wondering if he'll be able to sleep this night.

Sleep comes hard But this night is like the rest, he gets two hours.

First it is the sleep disorder that came with the pain that came with the injuries to his neck and back. His stomach is a mess again, too, so when he does nod off he gags and jolts awake in a panic. His two precious hours

start just before dawn in the semi -darkness and semi-quiet of a bedroom with the television on.

He worries more than he dreams, worries about all of the things on all of the lists that come with this shelter of his. And is he doing the right thing?

It's not as though he ever planned on starting a shelter. In fact, it happened by accident almost, a thing of impulse born into a night three years ago when it was worry what to do with his new foundation that was keeping Sean Cononie up late, driving him from his bed and into his Lexus and down darkened streets in search of a purpose. Around midnight he spotted a homeless couple huddled beneath a high(Continued on page 10)

The Cooperative Feeding Program is in desperate need of food for the community food pantry.

•

•

• •

The shelves are empty and we need to feed our community members that need just a little help.

Please get with your church, optimist clubs, schools, or social clubs and do a food drive so our little ones, seniors and individuals get some food in their bellies.

Please call 954-792-2EAT www.FeedingBroward.org

Learn how to start your own food pantry so your own group can do what we do to help our poorest members of our community. Go to www.Training.cscBroward.org.

Project name: The Cupboard Is Bare.

The Voice of the Homeless

Page 10

HAPPY NEW YEAR

(Continued from page 9)

way bridge.

"Need a place to stay?" he had asked.

It happened just like that.

An impulse, a question, a shelter.

He put the couple up in an apartment at 2707 Lincoln St. And then, on another sleepless night, he found another homeless person. And then two apartments, then an entire bungalow. And then, when there were just a dozen or so people, Johnny came.

Then another and another.

And then the other shelters heard about this Sean guy who had his own shelter, and they began calling him, asking him to take in the drug addicts and the mentally ill, the old senile drunks and the young troublemaking ones, while at the same time demanding to know when he was going to get a board of directors made up of people other than the people staying in the shelter.

Maybe then he would get some proper funding. And when was he going to quit sending them out to beg? That gave everybody a bad name.

And the police began calling, too, asking him to pick up drunks passed out on the streets where they would ban Sean's collection crews on the very next day. And the hospitals called with their poor patients and a warning they wouldn't keep them, and so Sean had to take them too, didn't he?

Is he doing the right thing, taking in people no other shelter would touch, sending them into that rush-hour traffic, publishing a newspaper written by them? Is he doing the right thing?

Sean's two hours of rest and worry end just after dawn

when his legs start to jerk up and down. That happens a lot, too.

Up and down, up and down, so hard it's impossible to keep his eyes closed a minute longer.

A clean start?

On this morning, Sean stays at his house pouring jars of coins into sorting machines while, back at the shelter, Johnny gets caught faking a shower.

His roommates, Eddie and Pete, bug him so much that he finally goes inside the bathroom and shuts the door. Eddie, whom Sean had found passed out by a fire hydrant, and Pete, whom Sean had found in a dumpster, hear the water running.

When Johnny comes out a few minutes later, the blackness of his feet, once uniform from toes to ankles, is streaked as if splashed, however briefly, by a stream of water. Johnny is wearing the same soiled jeans, the same unbuttoned shirt. Eddie and Pete poke their heads inside the bathroom and notice there is no bar of soap.

"What do I gotta do, throw you in the shower?" Pete says to him.

Sean hears about the phantom shower when he gets to the shelter later that day and calls Johnny up to Penthouse 4.

Johnny shuffles into the front room and searches out the one vacant chair, a lighted cigarette in his hand, another unlighted one in his mouth, a third sticking out of his hair, next to, but not actually behind, his ear. The phones are ringing, the smoke is thickening, the line outside is getting longer, and Della is standing off to the side by the crates of cranberry juice.

"We're going to have to

Adjuster Busters • • •

Let us deal with your Homeowners Insurance Claim Do you feel your Homeowners Insurance is not giving you the correct amount for your claim No fee if we don't get you more for your claim

954-924-3571

Most fees work like this. Let’s say you had a Wilma Claim and the insurance company paid you $10,000.00 and we reviewed your claim and we got you another $3,000.00 you would pay us a fee of 30% of the $3,000.00 which is $900.00.

You would get $2100.00 extra for a valid cost that your insurance adjuster missed.

Every day John can been seen sitting in his best chair of the month. The chair is about ten feet from Sean's office. hose you down," Sean says to Johnny, who is using the last ember of one cigarette to light up another.

Johnny furrows his brow, and then he smiles a bit.

"If you scrub me," he says, "put on the rubber gloves."

Della giggles. With her hands clasped in front of her, that sheepish smile on her face, she looks almost girlish, despite being middle-aged and worldweary.

"Della, the Miracle," Sean calls her, sober and off crack for three months now, and able for the first time in the year he's known her to follow a conversation.

She had come home drunk last night and now she was swearing to God, for the fourth time, that she never had a single drug, even though, reeking of booze, she had banged on the door of Penthouse 4 and woke up Jenny at 3 a.m.

"Can you just not dis-

charge me, please?" she begs Sean.

Sean just stares at her.

Della shifts her foot, opens her mouth, as if to repeat her oath, closes it back up. She fixes a smile on her face, and then tries out a frown, and when that doesn't work either, she looks at the floor. Sean stares. She looks at the ceiling. Then she looks away altogether.

"OK, Sean", she finally says, "I was drinkin' last night."

It was a bottle of schnapps.

Her disability check came in and she cashed it and her boyfriend came around and they decided to get drunk. It just happened.

"You remember that I told you not to sneak out?" he says.

"Yes, Sir." "You wanna end up brain dead?"

"That's why I'm bipolar," she says. "Because of all those drugs I've done and all the booze I've had."

(Continued on page 11)

Computer Maintenance

Spyware-Viruses Cleaning-Updating $25 per month

Stop the problem before it happens.

800-727-4185

Page 11

Volume VIII, Issue 1

HOMELESSVOICE

(Continued from page 10)

"You're gonna come back with a wet brain. You're not even gonna know when you pee."

"I've already got cirrhosis, " she says, as if to compliment Sean for being so perceptive.

Susan knocks on the door and lumbers in. Sean yells at her for smoking when she's so out of breath. Jeff, a day laborer who attributes his perpetually bowed head to his chronically low selfesteem, comes in to pay his $16 in daily rent. Sean tells Annie, who is about to spend her first night ever at a shelter, to wipe the toilet seat before using it and to sleep with her money on her, even if she has to put it in her bra, and to not be afraid, that everything is going to be OK. The line keeps coming and the phone keeps ringing and Johnny shuffles away, still smoking, still dirty.

As darkness falls, Sean hands a slip of paper to Della for her to sign.

Thirty days of no visitors and 10 days of AA meetings, that was her punishment. When she signs, Sean notices a black mark on her fingernail, the sort of burn caused when the lighter held over a crack pipe flickers up between each inhale.

It's an old stain, Della says.

She swears to God it is. But it doesn't look old to Sean.

A new man Four more two-hour nights and Sean is exhausted. Four more showerless days and Johnny is rank.

Then comes Day 15 of Johnny's showerless streak, the day when Johnny goes inside the bathroom of Room 8 and the water goes on and stays on this time.

"Hey," Pete says, smiling through the door after a half-hour has passed. "you're going to have to pay the water bill!"

When Johnny finally comes out, he is wearing a new T -shirt and he is holding up a new pair of pants, Sean's black jeans, size 42, at least two sizes too big for Johnny.

Eddie and Pete talk about boiling his old clothes while Johnny brags about his new ones, offering in his quiet mumbly voice to buy a soda for anyone who wants one. No one says a word about the T-shirt being on backwards.

Sean is sorting change again and misses the whole thing.

And then the next day, before he can even sit down at the desk in Penthouse 4, he is distracted by news that Carol got a $20 bill from somewhere, and that it is gone now, and that ever since it disappeared her jaw has been wobbling.

That can mean only one thing. Crack in the shelter. And he sends for Carol, whose middle -aged world-weariness shows a lot more than Della's does.

Carol comes up the stairs and through the door. She gave the $20 to Caroline, she says.

Caroline is Carol's friend. No one has ever seen Caroline. No one even knows who Caroline is.

"I gotta problem." Sean says. "I know you're lyin'."

He empties Carol's purse, opens her lipstick, looks inside her half-crushed pack of cigarettes. It will take Sean seven hours before Carol finally admits to smoking crack. It is past midnight when Carol, jaw wobbling like mad, finally says where she got it.

Della has it, she says. It's Della.

Sean smashes Carol's

Convert VHS to DVD $25

954-376-4122

Download the Homeless Voice.

Make Your Donation Online www.HomelessVoice.org

To send a letter to my friend John: dearjohn@homelessvoice.org or send to My Friend John P.O. Box292-577 Davie, Fl 33329 crack in front of her, tells her if she wants to stay she'll be confined to her room for 30 days.

"I wanna stay, Sean, I wanna stay," she says.

But Della won't give up her crack. She won't agree to room confinement. She lets Sean give her a hug, but she won't give him any excuse to keep her and she walks away -- Della the Miracle, a bundle of clothes, unbrushed hair, smiles, frowns, swearing to God with her hidden cash into the night.

Jenny goes into the back room to fall asleep and Sean is left alone, knowing his own bed will offer no comfort. He goes into that hot night, down the stairs and through the gap in the chain-link fence where Johnny's old jeans, freshly cleaned, if not boiled too, have been set out to dry.

He opens the door to Room 8. Sean knows Johnny would be asleep. Johnny can sleep anywhere, either where he is now -- on the couch, holding his blanket -- or beneath the gazebo, or in the lawn chair outside, anywhere, anytime, bucketfuls of slumber on demand.

Sean snaps on the light and Johnny opens his eyes.

Here at the end of a tired day, it turns out that Johnny McCormick, the neediest, is the one Sean Cononie, the givingest, is needing again.

"Wanna cigarette?" Sean asks, and of course Johnny does, and he takes a light, too.

Sean pulls a copy of The Homeless Herald out of his back pocket.

"Look Johnny, you're fa-

mous," Sean says, opening to Page 6. He holds it out for Johnny.

Johnny rustles it, turns it this way and that.

Sean's story, "My Friend Named John," tells of how they had met on the curb by a bus station, and how Sean had tried to get the psych ward at the hospital to take Johnny in, but the hospital had refused and how, over the months, people had come and gone, hundreds of them so far -Annies and Carols and Toms and lots and lots of Dellas -- and Johnny was always there holding his pants up with his left hand and making Sean smile.

Johnny's eyes, flickering beneath the tangle of his hair, scan back and forth across the upside-down newspaper. To Sean, he looks like Jesus Christ.

It doesn't matter that Johnny's feet are already turning black again. Hadn't Christ's feet gotten dirty in the Bible and didn't someone have to wash them off, or something like that?

And there it is in black and white and in Sean's own words.

"He is the best present God has ever given me in my entire life."

"Johnny, I love you," Sean says.

"And I hate you, too," Johnny says.

But he can't help smiling when he says it and then he gives himself away with that soft laugh of his.

Copyright 1999, Sun-Sentinel

By Robert George

Access Your Computer Anywhere.

One Time Setup Fee.

No Monthly Charges.

Access Your Own Desktop With Your Programs And Data Free!!!

Watch Your Home Computer Watch Where Your Kids/ Workers Go.

Free

1-800-727-4185 Access Anywhere