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After outpouring of support, struggling to reach stability
After outpouring of support, struggling to reach stability
By Antonio Olivo
https://twitter.com/aolivo
November 23
[font size=1]John Baird works as a Salvation Army bell ringer in Annandale to raise money to sleep in a roadside motel. (Antonio Olivo/The Washington Post)[/font]
The dull ache in his shoulder had grown sharp by the end of John Baird’s shift ringing a Salvation Army bell in the parking lot of a suburban supermarket. Nine hours meant $90 to add to the money his old high school classmates donated to make sure he has a warm place to sleep at night.
Baird, 47, was featured in a Washington Post story in October about homeless people who live in their cars in Fairfax County. He wrecked his 2004 Lincoln Mercury Grand Marquis last summer, and since then has spent most nights sleeping in an abandoned building, dead leaves finding their way into his sleeping bag.
{In a wealthy Virginia suburb, their cars are their beds}
....
The Lamb Center, a nonprofit in Fairfax city that caters to the area’s homeless, received several larger donations as a result of the article, including one commitment for $20,000 every year for a decade, officials there said.
And the owner of the towing yard where Baird’s mangled car is accruing fees agreed to allow him to retrieve some personal records and photographs. But reclaiming the car and paying to repair it remains far out of reach.
By Antonio Olivo
https://twitter.com/aolivo
November 23
[font size=1]John Baird works as a Salvation Army bell ringer in Annandale to raise money to sleep in a roadside motel. (Antonio Olivo/The Washington Post)[/font]
The dull ache in his shoulder had grown sharp by the end of John Baird’s shift ringing a Salvation Army bell in the parking lot of a suburban supermarket. Nine hours meant $90 to add to the money his old high school classmates donated to make sure he has a warm place to sleep at night.
Baird, 47, was featured in a Washington Post story in October about homeless people who live in their cars in Fairfax County. He wrecked his 2004 Lincoln Mercury Grand Marquis last summer, and since then has spent most nights sleeping in an abandoned building, dead leaves finding their way into his sleeping bag.
{In a wealthy Virginia suburb, their cars are their beds}
....
The Lamb Center, a nonprofit in Fairfax city that caters to the area’s homeless, received several larger donations as a result of the article, including one commitment for $20,000 every year for a decade, officials there said.
And the owner of the towing yard where Baird’s mangled car is accruing fees agreed to allow him to retrieve some personal records and photographs. But reclaiming the car and paying to repair it remains far out of reach.