St. Martin's Cloak
The Cloak is a collection of audio vignettes—stories that reveal parishioners’ faith journeys. Share your thoughts by sending us an e-mail.
I felt that it was important to help another human being who clearly couldn’t help himself.
Bob Previdi
Bob Previdi remembers an occasion when he was able to call on his contacts and skills to help a Chestnut Hill homeless man come in off the streets.
When I was head of the Business Association here in Chestnut Hill, one of the storeowners came and he was talking about one of the homeless people, Laddie, who is very famous here in Chestnut Hill; he grew up here. According to the ladies of Chestnut Hill he had quite a way with them. But unfortunately he had a horrible motorcycle accident in 1977 that left him in a mindset that just didn’t want to do anything but sleep in the streets of Chestnut Hill. He had places to go but he simply chose not to, and he would sleep in the alleyways of Chestnut Hill. It was fine, certainly, for when he was a younger man, but a few years ago when I head of the Business Association he had turned 60 and the years of being on the street were taking its toll on him physically.
On this one particular day I remember the owner of the Antiques Gallery coming to me in his gruff little way and saying “Bob, I can complain about Laddie and there’s a lot about him—as a business man I’m not happy about him being here. But I’m not calling about that. I can see that his physical state is deteriorating; he looks pale and he he’s got an unusual limp. Is there anything we can do for him?”
Having worked in the Council President’s office here in Philadelphia for a couple of years I knew that there was. So I reached out to the city agencies, and it took a number of tries to get them out here. Laddie is very resistant to help. But when the colder weather hit, he took that help. And every six months or so, it seemed, – we needed to—his gait had a certain walk, and I knew his leg was bothering him. And I’d get calls from storeowners saying: “He’s shouting and yelling.” And I knew it was a point at which we’d have to have an intervention with him.
Peg Miller in the office suggested I reach out to his sister, who was in Oregon, and I did. And, God bless her, she flew out here and spent 3 weeks, and we really tried to get him settled in some kind of a home. And we did for a short period of time, but he invariably would escape and come back to the streets of Chestnut Hill.
As difficult as he was I felt that it was important to help another human being who clearly couldn’t help himself when he got to the point of his body giving out on him. And finally his sister said, “Listen, do you know any lawyers? His lawyer is retiring and we need a lawyer to be his trust-state (sp?).” I don’t know if my wife totally appreciates it, because Laddy’s paperwork has been very, very heavy at times because now he’s in a nursing home. Last winter was particularly tough. And I think he realized at age 64 or 65 that he is now—he realized he was at a point where he could not stay outside anymore. And thankfully he came indoors.
His health is not good and his time is on this earth is short. But certainly we wanted to make it as comfortable as possible for him.
It’s a lot of work worrying about Lad and what his next steps are in life, but it’s nice to know that at least I’m taking my ability to navigate through government and not using it in a typical bureaucratic fashion but trying to help another human being.