Men’s mission shelters jobless, sick

By Ed Runyan

A Lowellville man said he was sleeping in a parking deck a week ago.

WARREN — Ken Conley is a painter who has enjoyed living in some interesting locations, such as the Southeast United States, San Francisco and Costa Rica.

The 62-year-old Warren Harding graduate has been on his own, without family, since his early 20s, so he knows that his only safety nets are his Social Security check and the Warren Family Mission.

In October 2007, he found himself in an uncomfortable situation.

He had been living in Warren but was ready to move to San Francisco. When his lease expired on his apartment, he prepared to leave, but a mix-up kept him from getting money out of his bank account.

“I was more or less stranded,” Conley said.

He turned to the Warren Family Mission’s men’s shelter on West Market Street near Haymaker Avenue Northwest. He was impressed with how clean the place was and liked the fellowship and the Bible study.

A little more than a year later, he was in a bind again.

In Costa Rica, he was robbed of about $650. He flew back to San Francisco from there but realized he didn’t have the money to live there, so about three weeks ago, he took a Greyhound bus to Warren and came to the mission again.

He was sick when he got to Warren, and several weeks at the mission helped him get better, Conley said.

“I think we all take care of ourselves the best way we can,” Conley said Friday.

“This is just something that happened to me. If you live long enough, eventually you’ll find yourself in a circumstance you couldn’t have predicted. This kind of thing can happen to anyone,” he said.

When he has enough Social Security money saved, he plans to return to Costa Rica, Conley said.

Tom Devlin, men’s director for Warren Family Mission, said Conley and the other men at the shelter normally must leave the shelter from about 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., but the cold weather this week meant that they were allowed to stay inside if they wanted.

Devlin said Conley is typical of the men who come to the shelter in that they are fairly normal people who have experienced a setback, such as job loss or injury.

Unlikey Conley, however, most of the men he sees are battling a drug or alcohol addiction.

In a lot of cases, Devlin helps 18- and 19-year-olds who came from good homes but never learned responsibility.

“When you think of the homeless, you think of hobos. It’s not just the guy who hits the bottle,” Devlin said.

Arnold Harding, 51, of Lowellville, said he has been out of work since 1983 when he lost his job at Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. A year later in Texas, he was hit by a car while walking along a road and spent 37 days in a coma.

He suffered permanent leg and brain injuries.

Harding said he walked into St. Elizabeth Health Center a week ago and said he was homeless. He was referred to the Warren Family Mission because he said he was turned away from the Rescue Mission of Mahoning Valley in Youngstown because of a previous incident.

Before going to St. Elizabeth’s, he was sleeping in a parking deck in Youngstown, he added.

runyan@vindy.com