Homeless Pets for Homeless People

"Lookie here," Joe Bridges says.

Engrossed in my duties as President of Union Mission, I look at our skinny, sandy hair, cowboy boat wearing maintenance man ... formerly homeless, addicted and married.

Before I can say anything, he walks away.

Trusting Joe with everything in me, I meander into the lobby, down the hall and into the courtyard of the men's shelter.

Joe and I were pretty cocky about our shelters and had the audacity to believe they should resemble a home.

Savannah, Georgia's got a lot of great private courtyards so we built one whenever we built shelters ... which was often.

The courtyard at Grace House had ten foot walls, a brick yard leading to an elaborate garden, a fountain with fish, a covered stage and a huge planter with a massive weeping willow tree sprouting out of it.

The weeping willow tree is in honor of my Grandma Carver who had one in her front yard. When she died, I thought it'd be nice to have a daily reminder of her so Joe built the planter, planted the tree which is what I saw when I stared out of my office window.

Joe designed the planter so it was four connecting benches in the shade and that's where he's sitting.

Taking the cigarette from his mouth, he coughs up a wad of spit, lets it fly over the courtyard wall and says, "You had a dumb idea. We have to kill it."

"What are you talking about?" I sigh taking my place beside him.

"Lookie," he says returning the cigarette to his mouth while nodding his head forward.

The courtyard is filled with homeless men, too sick to work or look for it. They are coughing, hacking, spitting, showing each other the X-rays the Hospital gave them ... and dogs.

I was convinced if we gave homeless people pets they'll love them, place the animals first, take the focus off themselves, learn to give rather than take and ... eventually love themselves and other people.

"It's not really a dumb idea," Joseph adds blowing smoke halos above our heads. "It's just impracticable. Somebody's gonna get hurt."

At that moment, a sick homeless guy stands, takes two steps and immediately trips over one of the two dozen leashes connecting the dogs to their owners.

Half a dozen homeless guys stumble to help the guy but his dog's barking furiously protecting his owner so they sit back down and the dog licks the blood away.

"Ouch," I say. "I see what you mean."

"I thought you would," Joseph says standing up to help the man and he has so much authority about him the dog shyly backs away.

The guy stands holding his bleeding head untangling himself from multiple leashes.

"We gonna get sued," Joe fires his final point, lights another cigarette and wanders off to whatever he's doing next.

And that was the end of the homeless pets for homeless people program ... at least in the big shelters.

Well ... except when we broke the new rule for people and pets we especially liked.