On February 28, Daybreak hosted its sixth-annual Greater Macon Sleepout. The event raises funds for the homeless day center on Walnut Street, which provides an escape from the elements to about 100 clients each weekday.
Participants at the Sleepout, along with homeless people who frequent the center, spend the night in a tent city beside Daybreak. The event is about more than raising money. It also raises awareness about an issue that affects hundreds of homeless Bibb County residents each night.
The following current and former Daybreak clients shared their stories with The Telegraph at the Sleepout.
Larry McCormick Jr.
Larry McCormick Jr. says he lost himself when he lost his home about a year ago. He spent the night at Daybreak on Feb. 28, during the center’s annual Greater Macon Sleepout. Samantha Max smax@macon.com
Just over a year ago, Larry McCormick, Jr. lost everything.
First he lost his job. Then, McCormick’s mother passed away, and he found out she owed money on their house. McCormick couldn’t afford the bills. So he lost his home, too.
“When I lost the house, I lost myself,” McCormick said.
McCormick’s wife had divorced him a few years before, taking with her their 7-year-old daughter. He says he hasn’t seen her in about five years.
Some nights, as McCormick looks up at the stars, cocooned in his sleeping bag under the bridge by the Ocmulgee River, he struggles to remember who he is.
It’s hard to talk about, he said. Being homeless is stressful.
Every day, McCormick has to worry about where he’ll find his next meal and where he’ll rest his head. He spent his first eight months without a home in an abandoned structure, until authorities kicked him out. Now, the 50-year-old sleeps under the bridge, in cemeteries, on church stoops.
“Where they’ll allow me to,” he said.
McCormick has been kicked out for trespassing enough times to know he’s not welcome everywhere. He says some people look right through him. Drivers have run McCormick over twice as he’s walked down the street, he said.
“They hit me because I’m homeless,” McCormick said.
McCormick spends most of his days at Daybreak, where he’s found friendship and support. The homeless center is working with him to secure Social Security benefits and a permanent place to stay.
More than anything, McCormick wants to see his daughter again, to be able to provide for her. Tears fell from his blue eyes and down his cheeks when he talks about the little girl he hasn’t seen in years.
“I miss her,” McCormick said. “I don’t cry about much, but her, I do.”
Anthony Farlee
Anthony Farlee holds his late mother’s Bible at the Greater Macon Sleepout at Daybreak on Feb. 28. He’s been homeless for less than a week. Samantha Max smax@macon.com
Anthony Farlee has been homeless for less than week. But he knew it was coming.
Farlee, 61, has struggled with alcoholism since he was 15 years old. He’s been clean for a few years here and there, but says alcohol and drug addictions have consumed at least four decades of his life.
Farlee moved in with his sister about eight months ago, after losing his job. When he refused her pleas to go back to treatment — a course he’s taken, against his will, multiple times before — she kicked him out.
“This time, if I choose to go, it’s going to be 100 percent my choice,” Farlee said.
Until then, Farlee plans to put his faith in God. In his overstuffed backpack he now carries everywhere he goes, Farlee keeps a leather-bound Bible he bought for his mother in 1994. Faith is what keeps Farlee going, even on his hardest days.
There’s a lot people might not realize about Farlee as he walks down the sidewalk with a sack filled with possessions tossed over his shoulders, he said. Farlee has worked on a farm, spent 25 years in a maintenance job and another 13 driving a truck across the country.
“I never went to college and all, but I’m a little bit smarter than what I act most of the time,” he said.
Farlee hopes to get a job soon. For years, he said, he has allowed others to enable his addiction. This past week has been a wake-up call, he said.
Farlee says he needs to prove to himself that he can make it on his own.
“Whether I make it or break it,” Farlee said, “I’ll be the only one responsible.”
Dexter Hill
Dexter Hill, maintenance manager at Daybreak, says helping others is his calling. “I think this is my destiny,” he said, at the Greater Macon Sleepout Feb. 28. Samantha Max smax@macon.com
Dexter Hill gave up everything when he moved to Georgia two years ago. He’s glad he did.
The Daybreak maintenance manager quit his high-paying bank job in New York, got a divorce and drove down to Atlanta, where he lived in his car for six months. Hill had grown tired of corporate America — of a career he didn’t love and a world where people didn’t treat one another with kindness.
“I wasn’t happy,” he said.
Hill said he hadn’t felt fulfilled for years.
“I felt God had something more for me to do,” he said.
When Hill moved to Macon after his short stint in Atlanta, Daybreak became his home.
Before getting a job at Daybreak, Hill was a client at the day center. Hill was homeless for about a year after leaving New York. He spent his first nights in Macon at the Salvation Army shelter and his days at Daybreak.
Because Hill has experienced homelessness himself, he said it’s easier for him to counsel clients at the center. Hill loves sharing his story with others and hopes his own success will help them see “it’s gonna be OK.”
Helping others is Hill’s calling, he said. It’s what reminds him that all of the sacrifices he’s made were worth it.
“I think this is my destiny,” Hill said.
At Daybreak, he said, clients are treated like family.
“They don’t judge you. They don’t care where you came from. They don’t care what background you come from,” Hill said. “It’s just love. It’s just love that you really feel when you walk in the door.”
Samantha Max is a Report for America corps member and reports for The Telegraph with support from the News/CoLab at Arizona State University. She joined The Telegraph in June of 2018 and reports on the health of the community. Samantha graduated from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism in 2018. As an undergraduate student, she interned for the Medill Justice Project, Hoy (Chicago Tribune’s Spanish-language publication) and NPR-affiliate station WYPR in her hometown of Baltimore. Follow her on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/smax1996 and on Twitter @samanthaellimax. You can also join her Facebook group. Learn more about Report for America at www.reportforamerica.org.
