Viral Facebook Post Leads to Outpouring of Support for Local Homeless Couple

When Lori Cruz went into the McDonald’s on Bryant Wednesday night, she had anticipated just grabbing a quick bite with her boyfriend and then leaving again, a rather customary stop for the mother of five teenagers.

It was after 9 p.m. and the temperature had dropped down to freezing after the sun set, and Cruz, cold, ran from her car to the store where it was warm. Once inside, she notice a couple sitting off in the corner with their backpacks around them and the man appeared to be in pain. He winced a bit as he moved, and Cruz, who has arthritis herself, thought he might be suffering because of the weather. He didn’t appear to have much.

At that point she decided she was going to go and buy them something to eat, so she approached the table and spoke to the couple. She asked why they weren’t in a shelter and learned that neither had blankets or a place to sleep, so she continued the conversation to the counter, where she ordered them food.

“They weren’t asking for money; they weren’t asking for anything…They weren’t trying to buy a whole bunch of stuff from the menu. She was just like, ‘I’ll have a 10-piece nugget’…and he was just like, ‘I’ll have whatever she’s having’. Your heart went out to them because they weren’t trying to be like, ‘Oh, I’ll take a Big Mac and I’ll take an ice cream, and I’ll take this…’”

After placing the order and receiving the food—Cruz ended up ordering them supersized meals instead of just the nuggets, and paid for coffee for later—they returned to the table and she began to consider how she could go about getting them more help.

“I thought, ‘you know what? I’ve seen stuff happen on Craigslist…and people help immediately,’” Cruz explained. She then made the post from her phone to the San Angelo Craigslist 2 page asking for help, and within minutes people began making comments.

“I’m not kidding: within like a minute and a half there was already a guy on his way. [There was] another lady that was already willing to help, he said he would put them up in a hotel for the night and we could go from there,” she said. “But I didn’t want to tell them that when I left because I didn’t want to get their hopes up, so we waited in the car outside…”

On the phone with David Monreal, Cruz explained where the couple were seated and told him which McDonald’s to go to, then left the fast food chain. Within 15 minutes of her leaving, the couple said, Monreal appeared and came right over to them, then offered to book them into a hotel room for the night.

By Thursday morning Lori Cruz’s Facebook post had reached over 225 comments, and scores of people were asking for the room number and hotel so that they, too, could bring items by.

Overwhelmed by the support and grace they’ve received since Wednesday night, the couple, Nick and Cassie, said they were almost speechless at the blessings they’ve received over night.

Under the Bridge

The couple has been living on the streets for nearly a year now, sleeping on a concrete slab with no blankets or protection under the bridge across from McDonald’s, and carting their few belongings around in backpacks and plastic bags.

“Now that it’s winter, being at the bridge, you know, McDonald’s opens at 5 (a.m.), so we would be freezing, so we’d have to get up at 5-5:30 and have to go sit in McDonald’s till about 11,” Cassie explains their daily routine. “Then we go down to Wesley Soup Kitchen. After that, you know, if it’s cold, we go to the library and go read…till like maybe 6. And without a home, we’d have to go back to McDonald’s, a place to sit.”

Cassie and Nick say that they’re not the only ones sleeping under the bridge; on some nights they have a “neighbor” or two, sometimes with blankets, sometimes without, but none have any real kind of shelter.

Cassie and Nick have known each other for about 11-12 years, and both grew up in San Angelo. Following a marriage that moved her out of town for 14 years, Cassie returned and met Nick at a nightclub.

“We were just hanging out,” Nick said, adding that they were both at Graham Central Station alone and had noticed each other. He approached Cassie and struck up a conversation that turned into a friendship.

“We were friends for a while and then we started dating,” Cassie said. “We’ve kind of been through everything together. We’ve had a home, struggling, you know we’ve been through everything together all these years.”

The two are not officially married, but do claim each other as a spouse. For the time being they consider themselves common-law married, “but maybe one day,” Cassie adds dreamily. “You never know.”

Up until about a year ago, the couple lived a relatively “normal” life in San Angelo and shared an apartment on Lincoln St., just next to ASU. Nick was employed at the time and qualified for HUD housing, a program designed to assist low-income families.

“We used to have an apartment—he used to be on HUD—we were doing good,” Cassie said. “We had a lease and halfway through the lease a new company came in and bought the complex. And this complex just wanted college students, they didn’t want any HUD people in there, so we had to pay full rent or move. For that reason we lost our apartment and ended up out here.”

Before the Tuscany Apartments were taken over, Nick was allowed to pay what he could afford for rent, which was income based. His meager $50 a month apartment jumped to $525, and the couple was left without a home or the financial ability to find even temporary housing.

They soon moved in with a friend, who let them stay at her apartment for about a month, but when her mother became unfriendly with the idea they ended up on the streets.

“One Sunday, we stayed there—we’d decided to go eat breakfast at the Salvation Army but we didn’t want to walk all that way—so we stayed there and basically she was like, ‘Why are y’all still here? Y’all are supposed to go to the bridge,’” Nick said. “Basically she just kicked us to the streets and that’s where we were sleeping was under the bridge.”

For the next 11 months, the couple spent nights at the bridge and days in the soup kitchens, library and parks, walking back and forth to the various locations and carrying their belongings with them.

On occasion they’d sleep at the Salvation Army, but as the shelter is intended for emergency purposes and costs $13 per night after a set number of stays, they returned to the bridge.  Nick’s family also offered their homes for a couple of days here and there, but he said it was always just a day or two on weekends and now his brothers have families and full-time work, so staying is no longer an option.

Nick said it’s different in the summertime, when the warm weather makes nights outside tolerable and they can spend their afternoons in parks, but in the winter it’s a constant battle with the cold and the lack of warm clothes and protection and the difficulty he has walking due to nerve damage in his foot from diabetes makes the days and nights long and hard. 

“It’s kind of scary, you know, because we worry all the time where we’re going to sleep and not only cold in the winter, but not safe either,” Cassie said. “If you sleep under a bridge you’re out in the open; you never know what is going to happen to you. It’s kind of scary not knowing where you’re going to sleep at night and where you’re going to shower and clean up. It’s hard, you know, for all the homeless.”

Cassie said that over the past year, neither she nor Nick has been exposed to violence on the streets, but they have had items stolen from bags left at the bridge while they were at the library or McDonald’s. She said she’d heard of some other people sleeping in a park that were harmed, but primarily they’ve just had blankets, clothes and shoes stolen.

What they need most is stability, she said: help in finding employment and a solid place to stay while they collect a few paychecks so they can get back on their feet again and find a place of their own.

“We don’t have our own phone or address, so that makes it difficult to find employment,” she said.

In the past, Nick worked for Labor Ready and rang the bell for the Salvation Army, but he said now he’d like to get a job as a dishwasher somewhere because he’s done that in the past as well. Cassie has experience in housekeeping and working in a nursing home, and had an interview to become a bell ringer for the Salvation Army Thursday at 3 p.m.

“We have Salvation Army,” Cassie said. “I guess they do a lot. They’ll give you free nights sometimes. The only shelter we have for homeless is Salvation Army, so I think we should have at least a few more shelters. We have a lot of empty buildings in town so if someone cared or had the money, maybe we could make it into some kind of shelter.”

A Night of Blessings

On Wednesday night, the couple were seated in McDonald’s trying to keep warm, when Lori Cruz walked in.

“She kind of looked at me and him and she seen all our backpacks and all our stuff and…she came right up to us and asked us if we were hungry,” Cassie said. “She didn’t even know us…”

The couple was surprised by Cruz’s gesture and said they certainly hadn’t anticipated it would go any further, but what happened next exceeded even their highest hopes.

“We ate and she told us ‘bye’ and about 15 minutes later this man came to McDonald’s and said that she had called him from there…He came right up to us…so it went from there,” Cassie said Thursday morning at the Motel 6. “From her calling him, he helped us get a night here.”

“After that, it’s just like now, it’s like a chain reaction,” Nick added excitedly. “Now we starting to have people coming just giving us all kinds of stuff. Last night a guy came and brought me some clothes, sweatshirts, beanie hats, some shoes. I’m like ‘Oh man, thank you God!’ This is such a blessing because this has never happened to us…This blessings is so good, I’m about to be speechless. I’m about to burst into tears! It’s just so sudden the way God comes and brings people to us and brings things that we need.”

A woman came and paid for the second night and promised to returned the following day because she wanted to pay for the following week. Cassie and Nick were beside themselves at the gesture, and said it was almost unbelievable that someone would be willing to give so much money to give them a warm place to stay for the week.

By Thursday morning three people had gone by to visit the couple in the hotel room, bringing hygienic products, clothing and blankets with them.

“All I have is these sandals,” Cassie said, pointing to some size 9.5 sandals on the floor. “I don’t even have tennis shoes to wear and it’s cold outside. Hopefully I can start bell ringing next week at Salvation Army. I have an interview today at 3, so hopefully I’ll get a paycheck, too.”

Been There, Done That

Only a few hours after the interview Thursday noon, the woman who had promised the one-week stay came forward and said she’d actually come to a different arrangement. Rather than a week in Motel 6, she’d booked a month at El Patio, with check-in on Friday afternoon.

At the El Patio, their room will be outfitted with a refrigerator and microwave—something the current room does not have—and the woman said she thought that would be better for them. The stream of local dining options was also a plus, she said, so people can purchase gift cards if they want to help with food.

The woman, a local small business owner, wished to remain anonymous, however she said her motivation for providing such generous support stems from her own past. 

“I’ve been there and I’ve done that,” she said. “I’ve been on the other end.”

Having spent six months homeless and on the streets herself, the woman said she can relate to Nick and Cassie’s story and that it takes someone willing to help to come out of a situation like that.

“It was faith and people helping me, honestly,” she said of how she overcame her situation. “It wasn’t a handout it was a help up.”

It’s been three to four years since she was in that situation, she said, and she’s been able to build a business and retake control of her life. During the month Nick and Cassie are off the streets she hopes they try to get back up on their feet and get permanent jobs.

“It takes somebody to trust a homeless person and give them a chance instead of always thinking something’s wrong with them or there’s something bad about them,” she said.

By Thursday evening, the woman’s generosity had been met by that of several others, some providing clothing and hygiene products, others offering bicycles for the two to get around.

“Oh my gosh, I almost started crying,” Cruz said about the response. “I was so happy to see that she’s got a job interview and people are going to take her gift cards. When it came down to it, everybody that had a heart was there…and that’s what we should do anytime there’s someone in need.”

Further Assistance

A number of organizations have commented on the Facebook post that started it all for Nick and Cassie, many providing links to their pages and information about donating.

Jennifer Banks, a San Angelo Retailer working to set up a youth group, says she’s collecting clothing for needy families with children in the community and trying to teach youth about the importance of giving.

She said she is willing to help anyone in need that she can and accepts donations for the needy, which she plans to distribute with the youth group on Saturday. She may be contacted at 325-206-0807.

Those involved on the original post have created a Facebook page dedicated to assistance titled San Angelo Coming Together. So far, those involved have identified another homeless man and will be assisting him as well.

On Wednesday, Nov. 19, The Concho Valley Homeless Planning Coalition will be hosting a free public symposium to discuss community housing issues. Members of Hope Haven of San Antonio will be present to discuss what they’ve done to assist homeless people in that city, and members of the CVHPC will talk about local issues. The symposium will be held at Paul Ann Baptist Church from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Several other interviews were conducted with people who contributed to this couple, however due to length, not all were included. Special thanks go to Jennie Rodriguez Flores, Rebecca Abalos Fagan and any others who have shown support thus far.