DIY: A New Approach to Volunteering

29-year-old Brandon Portis is homeless. He has been so for the past 2 years. He wasn't always. Once upon a time, Brandon went to private school. His mother drove a pre-owned Mercedes. His father picked him up on weekends to take him fishing in the Keyes. Before that his father used to hit them a lot.

But Brandon still went to college. He attended an out of state university on a partial scholarship. But somewhere around sophomore year, he began to have trouble coping. He skipped classes, lost his scholarship then dropped out to travel and write for awhile.

His fragile relationship with his father began to deteriorate. His mother sent him a few hundred a few times a year. He got used to living frugally. He worked part time, wrote a few articles for blogs, hung out, played the guitar. And then, in 2007, his mother died.

Soon Brandon's sparse savings began to run out. He moved back to Houston. But even in his home town, he had few other relatives to speak of. His dad was long gone. He crashed with friends for a while, but their hospitality was sporadic. His bank account closed along with most of his opportunities to get himself back on his feet.

Brandon is adamant about his efforts to find full time work. After his mother died, he abandoned writing in search of "real" work. He applied to anything suited for a university drop out. Then some jobs well suited for a high school. But Brandon had trouble getting hired: a car accident in 2006 knocked out three of his front teeth.

"People judge you a lot on the way you look, even if you're just a dishwasher. I can usually manage a shave. But as soon as I open my mouth '" I can see it in their face that I'm not going to get the job. The teeth make me look homeless even if nothing else does."

Brandon laughs dryly, exposing a missing front tooth and the jagged remains of his left lateral and cuspid. He has trouble making eye contact when he talks about them. But he's pretty funny in general; sarcastic. His vocabulary is unexpectedly broad, almost embarrassingly so considering.

He is always early for our interviews at an out of the way downtown Starbucks; always reading a dog-eared copy of the Roald Dahl omnibus when I walk in. He does not want to show me where he's been sleeping for the past week.

I'm not the only person Brandon meets at Starbucks. For the past 3 weeks, he has been meeting regularly with Lauren Wolfe: fellow Houstonian, housewife and mother of two. Several months ago Lauren read an article about London's DIY solution to homelessness.

Instead of pouring their relatively limited resources into shoring the inadequate infrastructure in place, a London-based charity decided to approach homeless people individually to ask them what they needed to get their life turned around. Then they supplied it. Of the 13 people they extended help to, 11 were no longer homeless. And they did it at an average of $1277 per person.

Inspired, Lauren gathered three of her friends together and they decided to do the same. Armed with nothing more than a few lines of newsprint and their collective but meager checking accounts, they began to approach homeless men and women they saw leaving Food Not Bombs food line in front of the Houston Library on Lamar and Brazos.

"We would give a person ten or twenty dollars and a few questions;" says Wolfe, "It was awkward sometimes. You could tell right away that some of them weren't in their right mind. Some of them didn't want to talk at all."

The group of four women felt out likely candidates for a little less than a month before they found Brandon. Since then, they've been meeting with him at this Starbucks. All four women came for the first meeting. But most often Lauren (who has the most free time) comes alone. She gives him a few bucks and tries to help him plan out what he needs to get on his feet.

"We discussed it a lot and a big concern with the group was that we wanted to make sure that whoever we gave the money to didn't have any drug problems or mental illnesses. Those people need help to," she adds hurriedly, "but '" I don't know '" this is sort of a gamble I guess. And we thought that we should focus on someone who's biggest limitation was money."

Brandon's immediate needs were predictable: a residence (an address to put on job applications, a place to shower and shave in, a safe place to keep his stuff), a reliable source of food and a job. And with a little more than $1500 saved between the four of them, Lauren and her group are making it happen.

They secured a six month lease in a rented room (with access to a kitchen '" that was important to Brandon). Lauren's husband has managed to secure a job interview. They are taking him to T.J. Maxx and Target next Tuesday on a $200 shopping spree to buy toiletries, a few dishes and clothes. None of the money will go directly into Brandon's hands.

That doesn't bother Brandon at all. "I don't think it is possible to say thank you enough. I still have trouble believing that all of this is happening. I feel like Ted Williams...just really lucky."

Lauren's help doesn't completely fix Brandon's problem. The group's finances are severely limited. His home is temporary. His teeth are still broken. He may still have to find a few meals at a local soup kitchen if he doesn't find a job soon. More permanent change will still require a lot of work on Brandon's part.

But now that some of his immediate problems are solved , the hope and determination in his voice are so fervent and genuine that they're almost painful to listen to.

"We just wanted to help. You give your money to an organization and you don't know how much of it goes to keep the lights on, to pay salaries. And it felt great knowing that there was something that I could do; that I could give the money and see I was making a difference instead of wondering."

And the numbers, at least, suggest that Houston could certainly use the help. According to the Coalition for the Homeless of Houston, there are roughly 10,000 homeless men, women and children in Houston and only 4,573 available beds to house them. Ninety percent of those beds are full at all times. The city of Houston, like most North American metropoles, seems ill equipped to handle the problem of its homeless.

DIY activism is certainly an exciting idea. According to a 2003 study by the University of Liverpool, human beings are genetically limited to caring about the 150 people in their immediate surroundings. That's why you're more likely to lend a friend $50 to buy a new pair of shoes than give $50 to say the tsunami relief effort. And possibly also why you would be more likely to continually invest money in helping out the homeless man on your street rather than give money to an organization that cares for the nameless faceless homeless around the city. Encouraging a feeling of personal responsibility for the welfare of those around us may be the first step along the road of making the world a better place.

But Lauren and her friends are unsure when they'll be able to reach out again. A lot will depend on the outcome of their current project. Brandon seems eager to accept the help, to get back on his feet. But the women are still niggled by the fear that their project will be unsuccessful. But, the UK statistics are encouraging and 2 weeks after the interview, Brandon moved into his new home and showed up on time for his first day at his new job at a construction site.

The future looks bright for Brandon, and if the idea catches on, maybe a few more will get a helping hand out of homelessness.