Town replaces home of familiar stranger

CHICORA, Pa. (AP) — He’s a well-read man, but you might not guess it by looking at Billy Hicks.

With a long, unkempt beard, Hicks rolled loose tobacco into a cigarette and turned up the volume on his stereo, blasting a Bob Dylan CD.

Here, he can play the music as loud as he wants.

From his one-room house recently built by community volunteers, Hicks said he is grateful for the support and friendship that has grown from a potentially dangerous situation.

“I didn’t realize how bad it was,” Hicks said.

Volunteers from St. Paul’s Community Church, a United Church of Christ congregation in Chicora, about 40 miles northeast of Pittsburgh, as well as other nearby churches, assisted with building the house for Hicks — someone everyone saw, but no one knew.

The home was dedicated Nov. 1.

The Rev. Randall Forester, pastor of St. Paul’s, said Hicks is known in the area as a person who walks along the side of a road to Chicora, Butler County.

“Everybody’s seen Billy,” Forester said.

After community members began befriending Hicks, they saw the man’s home, which is now nothing more than a dilapidated two- story brick structure with pine cones strewn throughout the inside. They knew they had to do something to help the man.

So plans were set in motion this spring and summer to build Hicks a new home.

The difference between Hicks’ old and new homes is vast — although the two sit just feet from each other. Down a quarter-mile-long path leading into the woods sits the house where Hicks said he lived for 20 years.

The roof is in danger of falling on the old brick home, and a paddling of ducks huddle together in a downstairs room. Debris was strewn about the floor of the home, including Hicks’ bedroom.

Living like that is something Hicks can barely fathom, now that he can see the old home through a window of his new one.

“I’m grateful for it, thank God and thank these people,” Hicks said.

He is getting settled into his new, one-room space — a bed in one corner and shelves lined with food in another. An armchair sits on the hardwood floor and Hicks can watch two channels or videotapes on his television.

The room is finished off with a dresser and large mirror and his stereo. A single string of Christmas lights and pictures of Jesus and Frida Kahlo, a Mexican painter, were hung on the walls.

Hicks’ dog watched him through the storm door, and his six cats were perched on the porch or around the homes.

Electricity is the only utility Hicks has at his new home, other than a telephone. He uses a wood-burning stove for heat.

Hicks’ situation doesn’t seem to bother him. He makes do with what he has, is strong in his beliefs and is kind to those who have helped him.

Hicks’ fame in the community has sprung from the 10-mile round trip to Chicora that he walks once a week to pick up groceries and books. Friends sometimes give him rides, he said.

The house has been a blessing, Hicks said — he felt that the volunteers’ generosity was not for him, but “for every human being.”

Ken Tack, spiritual leader of St. Paul’s Community Church, first befriended Hicks and started giving him rides, Forester said.

After other community and church members met Hicks — including 9-year-old Dakota Sweeney and Dan Mourer of a Chicora Methodist church — and saw the state of his dwelling, they decided to help the man.

Throughout the spring and summer, a home for Hicks was designed, and money, time and materials were donated for the endeavor, which was dubbed “Project Safe Haven,” Forester said. Businesses pitched in, too.

The pastor said he was pleasantly surprised at the amount of community help. “We almost had too many people for the work,” Forester said.

“We had some people that had no affiliation with the churches at all,” he said.

Forester hopes that “Billy is the start of something,” he said.

The project could be a jumping off point for more endeavors to meet the needs of local residents, he said. Forester sees people in need “all the time,” it’s just a matter of having the resources to help when no one else can.

Forester believes the volunteers and churches changed Hicks’ life. He now has a warm place to sleep and friends he can depend on.

“In some ways he wants a better life, in other ways he’s content,” Forester said. “He is one of the most genuinely happy people you’ll ever meet.”