No place like home for the no-longer homeless
Lee Benson
Harris is 55 years old and there's still more blond in his beard than any other color, although the lines on his face and the creases in his sunburned neck tell a harder story.
If you don't count jail time, for most of his adult life he's been jobless and homeless.
And yet there he stood Friday in the reception room of the brand new Sunrise Metro Apartments in downtown Salt Lake City, welcoming the mayor, members of the housing commission and other assorted big shots to a buffet lunch at the site of his first permanent Salt Lake home since he hopped off a freight train 20 years ago.
"I thought I'd just get off and get a bottle of wine or something and get back on," Nuel recalled of that fateful day two decades ago.
But his buddy needed to pick up a Social Security check in Ogden, so they did that and then they got the wine — and then they got in trouble and spent a few nights behind bars.
After that, Nuel, a Chicago native, never left.
"I found out I liked it here, the people are good," he said.
Somehow, between a bad back and escalating heroin problems, "roof over head" never made it to the top of his to-do list.
But in two weeks, when Nuel is scheduled to join 79 other chronically homeless people to be the first to take up permanent residency at Sunrise Metro, that will all be ancient history.
The apartments represent the first full-time homeless housing — and how's that for an oxymoron? — in Utah history. With more to come.
Nuel will pay $74 a month in rent, representing 30 percent of his Social Security check, and can come and go as he pleases.
And if you don't think he's happy about this, you didn't see the smile he was wearing at Friday's reception in his soon-to-be home.
"This is fantastic," he said. "No more living on the streets, no more going in and out of the shelters, no more running from the cops."
He allows that not everyone in the homeless community is similarly stoked. There are still those free spirits out there who remain cynical about the concept of homeless housing.
"A lot of 'em say, 'Oh the hell with it, it's going to be all these rules and stuff,"' Nuel said, "but I don't think that at all, I think it's going to be great. I'm trying to stay away from those people still shooting dope, doin' heroin, I don't want no part of that."
When Mayor Rocky Anderson stood up Friday and paid for his lunch with a speech, suggesting, "This is going to be viewed in history as a turning point for the homeless," Nuel Harris felt the mayor was speaking specifically about him.
"This," he said, looking around, "is home."
And the fact that the apartment complex sits between two freeway ramps and that a railroad track runs parallel to the north side only adds to the ambiance and appeal.
When it gets too quiet, just open the windows.
Lee Benson's column runs Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Please send e-mail to benson@desnews.com and faxes to 801-237-2527.
You can be the first to comment on this story.