ARTHUR H. TRICKETT-WILE

Homelessness is a worldwide issue. But no two stories are quite the same. Take a walk through town in Bowling Green, Kentucky, where you'll find couples navigating love on the street, folks fighting hard to get back on track and volunteers who open their hearts to lend a hand. 

It’s a blue and drizzly February night in Bowling Green. Just across the street from the Salvation Army on 400 West Main Ave., 20-some-odd folks in sweaters, coats and heavy clothes shuffle about a sparsely furnished waiting area. Hobby Lobby décor hangs here-and-there on the walls.

The registration volunteers, armed with clipboards and lists, have read off rules, assigned placements and hustled back into their rear office to get the ball rolling. Most of the folks here already know the drill. In the meantime, sounds of conversation, shuffling backpacks and plastic bags crisscross the guests seated among the white plastic folding tables and chairs. 

Seated on a shallow bench tucked into the corner, a young woman with sun-kissed—if not a bit sunburnt—skin rests her head on her boyfriend’s shoulders. A soft smile crosses his face, his bespectacled eyes and scruffy, dirty-blond beard. He holds his hand over hers, tucked into the pockets of his black Nike “Just Do It” sweater. 

The vans are here, now. And the young couple, with all their fellow weary travelers, pack off for the church—tonight, It's at Bowling Green Christian. When they arrive, they'll take a hot meal, a pillow, a blanket, and claim two side-by-side cots. They’ll be warm and safe for the evening. But it’s back on the street in the morning with the sunrise.

Thirty-four-year-old Alicia Zantow, from Greenfield, Indiana., met 34-year-old Dustin Carpenter through a mutual friend in his hometown of Franklin, Kentucky. The couple lived with Alicia's mother in Franklin. 

Then Alicia lost her job, just prior to the pandemic. The three of them got evicted. Their search for a new place, too, was complicated by other factors. "We had money, but we couldn't find a place to go, because we had three cats at the time," she said. 

Unwilling to let go of their fur-babies, they wound up in a motel room. Then more bad news. Alicia's mother had heart surgery on her mitral valve. With her in the hospital, then in rehab, they all moved in with Alicia's sister, Shannon.

Then, she and Alicia had a falling-out. 

Mom and the cats went to stay with other family in Indiana. Alicia and Dustin went back to Franklin to a shelter.

"We were doin' good for a little bit, then shit happened again—Dustin got kicked out," Alicia said. But at least they both still had jobs, and $1,200 in savings. They couldn't find a weekly-rate motel, so short-term rentals ate through that quickly. Dustin lost a series of jobs, and Alicia couldn't pay the rent on her own.

They couch-surfed with friends for a week. And soon enough, they found themselves on the doorstep of the Salvation Army in Bowling Green, where they stayed for a while. But the wards are segregated by gender, and they found the rules a bit strict. Even so, they didn't relish when Dustin was banned for alleged infractions.

Their stopgap after that was Room in the Inn Bowling Green, a local non-profit providing temporary overnight warming shelters with a dozen-and-a-half-or-so partner churches, rotating hosting each weeknight throughout the winter season. And in the final days, not a moment too soon, Alicia’s tax check came back. It was enough to get them through a week at the Economy Inn off the bypass. But just as before, when their pockets dried up, they were back out in the rain.

Alicia says it's hard to get off the street once you land there. Some employers will throw away a job application once they know that a person is homeless. And even if you land an interview, she said, you can't pull up with all your possessions in tow.

Once you get the job, keeping up can be a challenge. With no car, you're at the mercy of bus schedules. Even simple self-care tasks, like taking a shower, becomes a constant challenge when you're living on the street. Both she and Dustin are felons, too, which makes it all the more difficult. Some places won't rent. 

They camped by the river, then the police swept them out, under threat of trespass. Alicia said it's getting harder and harder to find a place to stay. So, for now, they’ll move from encampment to encampment, or stay at the parks, when they can. They’ll do their best to stay warm, dry, and fed. But they’ll be together, sunrise to sunset, rain-or-shine. Eventually, Dustin said, they're gonna get married. 

“But we gotta find our own place first,” Alicia said.

A heavyset man wearing blue jeans, a blue sweatshirt, glasses and a more-salt-than-pepper beard steps into the waiting area full of a couple-dozen-or-so weary travelers in the Salvation Army in Bowling Green. He surveys the bright, fluorescent room. Many of these faces, he knows. Any of those he doesn’t, he’ll come to know, soon enough.

He makes some small talk with the guests, sharing a few smiles and laughs, before he turns ‘round to make his way back down the hall, his steps somewhat labored. As he walks, one might notice the tears making their way up the back of the calf of his jeans. He hangs a right into a temporary office where, waiting for him in the back of a room piled high with packaged food, bottled drinks, toiletries, sleeping bags, tents, first-aid supplies, blankets, pillows, and two of his fellow volunteers, is his crowded desk.

Between a clipboard, laptop and a bag of plain, plastic poker chips with numbers drawn on in black marker, he makes random draws to decide who all goes where. As he works down the list, he and his teammates debate. With some of the . . . trickier placements, there’s creative footwork to be done. 

Not every guest is welcome at every venue. The goal, as always, is to get all who clear the vetting a hot dinner, a warm cot, and a hot breakfast in the morning. This bunch is determined, and it’s seldom they don’t meet it.Once the vans arrive, he makes his way out into the drizzle of the evening and hoists himself up into the driver’s seat of a car to ferry the guests. Thanks to him and his teammates, they’ll be safe for the night.

Dewayne Conner says he’s never much liked seeing people get picked on. It’s just one of the many reasons for his involvement at Bowling Green Room in the Inn, a non-profit partnered with more than a dozen local churches to provide overnight winter warming shelters for the homeless throughout the cold season. 

“I’m not big on titles, but I’m the board chairman,” he said. Dewayne’s involvement with began a few years ago through a friend he met when he started attending at Hillvue Heights Church. “When I walked in, I had this overwhelming feeling that ‘this [was] where I [needed] to be.”’ 

That same friend later invited him to volunteer for overnight shelters one night a week. But the connections he made with those he met through the shelter pulled him in deeper. “During the rest of the week, I’d miss the guests. I’d wonder how they were doing,” he said. “So, I started volunteering at registration just so I could see them.”

He considers many of those guests to be friends. “I see so many people in conversation put homeless people down. They don’t realize that they’re human beings, too.”

Though Dewayne tries his best not to take his work home with him, he finds it hard to keep himself from lending a hand at expense of his own health. “I’ve had some health issues this year—running too hard, too long and not taking care of myself.”

But his colleagues and fellow volunteers have, around every turn, encouraged him to step back and look after himself. He said that’s been helpful. “Now I’m feeling a lot better, which, in turn, is going to make me be able to volunteer more,” he said.

The shelter season is over for the year. “It’s a relief, but it’s also a burden,” Dewayne said. “You love the community. You love the guests, and you worry about them and what’s going to happen to them,” he said. In the weeks after the end of the season, he swung by to meet a few folks and hand out sleeping bags to those who he knew would be out in the cold overnight. And after all the work at intake, shelter nights, RITI board meetings, Hillvue and his day job, Dewayne will drive back home. 

Under the soft light of an overcast dawn, a middle-aged man sleeps quietly on a park bench tucked away along a small, paved path beneath the trees. He does not wake with the sound of morning birdsong. Stood beside him, a foot or so from his head, is just about every possession he has to his name, stuffed into, tied, or otherwise tethered to his hiking pack.

He is homeless, yes, but something seems different than expected—a fresh-shaven beard and a clean haircut. Under his penguin-pattern blanket, he breathes easy. It’s a well-deserved nap. After all, last night was his first shift at his new job at Rally’s.

Lester Martin said he used to live in Grayson County, where he had an apartment and a job at Plastikon—an injection-molding company in Leitchfield—but grew tired of his surroundings. “I hated that city. There wasn’t nothing to do there because it was so little,” he said. “I left my apartment, everything I had, and I took off walking.”

Lester said he walked about 70 miles to Bowling Green, under the presumption that he’d find a better life in a bigger town. When he got here, he still found a lot to be desired. “Bowling Green was supposed to have a lot more jobs, a lot more Greyhound busses, plasma centers [to sell blood for cash] and three different homeless shelters. It was nothing like what it said on the internet.”

Since he arrived, he’s lived on the street, at the Salvation Army, or in the overnight warming shelters at Room in the Inn. During the day, he makes a little money panhandling or, as he puts it “flying a sign." 

“That’s what I call day-to-day living—you can get enough to get you a little something to eat, get you some cigarettes, stuff like that. But you’re not going to be out here paying rent,” he said.

And yet, things were looking up. Several months after coming to Bowling Green, he hooked up with HOTEL INC, a local non-profit whose goals, according to their website, are to help homeless people to “overcome obstacles, connect with local resources, and establish attainable goals for self-sufficiency.” With their help, Lester was approved for a Section 8 housing voucher. 

“I’m about to get a crib here soon,” he said. “I’ve already got the job.” The manager at Rally’s on the bypass told him he’d be able to work with them, so long as he could get the right apparel. “All I got to do is get me some pants.”

On the final week of Room in the Inn, Lester made his way from downtown to JC’s Barber College near the Medical Center to get himself a haircut. Since COVID-19, the students have cut hair for free. And on the final night before his new job, he sat in a cot at the Salvation Army unpacking and repacking his belongings, dusting off his new slip-proof shoes and rolling his black trousers up for the coming day.

Lester showed up at work for late shifts, slept in the park and was making money. "They seem to like me," he said. He said he got along well with his co-workers and was content making burgers on the line. He would stop into the Wellness Connection for free meals and a place to rest during the day, and made time to look at housing with his Navigator at HOTEL INC. He even got a membership at BGPR Fitness so he could take showers on the regular.

He missed the shift at Rally’s that night, and never went back, assuming he’d be fired. Aside from that, he said, he hesitates at the idea of finding another job in the meantime. Due to a previous similar offense, per a signed agreement, he’ll have to appear before the court and likely serve a thirty-to-ninety-day sentence in jail. With a court date scheduled for May, he worries he’d have to give up a potential new job when he goes to serve his time. Unless he renews it, his Section 8 voucher will expire soon, leaving him to pay for housing on his own.

Lester said he thinks there’s more the city could do to help the homeless population. “Take one of these empty buildings, put showers in it, and make it where they can go and sit in there till five or six in the afternoon. Throw some washers and driers in there so they can do laundry.” That way, he said, nobody will complain about people staying in the parks.

“I’ve met a lot of good people out here,” Lester said. At the same time, he said he wished outsiders wouldn’t look down on the homeless community. “We’re out here trying to do what we can.” Aside from that, he said, many of the homeless just want folks to sit and talk to.