The Purple Pickup Truck
On a Friday morning in January of 2018, I was sitting at our kitchen table, enjoying my coffee and reading The Greenville News. A front-page headline caught my eye – “Condemned Economy Inn leaves residents in crisis. 'How do we live?' one asks.” The article featured a picture of the orange and yellow sign at the dilapidated motel located on Augusta Road, a mile from our house. I had heard over the years that drugs and prostitution were rampant at the property, and I had a vague notion that it was a dangerous place that I should avoid.
The Economy Inn was shut down Thursday evening by Greenville County for a multitude of hazards including roach and bed bug infestation, mold, and a sewage system that was not working properly. Some rooms lacked heat and others had no hot water. The 150 residents* - not guests - living at the Economy Inn were given 24 hours to leave the motel. The article stated that ten residents, who had nowhere else to go, had taken refuge at a church in Nicholtown.
That evening my husband, Russell, and I took food to the church and I noticed an elderly man sitting in the corner with his plate of food. He was wearing filthy green sweatpants with nylon basketball shorts pulled over them. A maroon-colored stocking cap covered his head and red reading glasses hung around his neck. He had a stunned look on his face and as we left, I put my hand on his arm and said, these are good people you are with. He nodded wordlessly, and I left with Russell.
Saturday morning, I went back to the church to talk to the pastor about the people who had been delivered to his care. There, at the end of the hall, the elderly gentleman was curled in a fetal position on a bare Red Cross air mattress on the floor. He was facing the wall and was sound asleep. I looked at the pastor with tears in my eyes and saw that he too was overcome.
The next morning, Russell, and I took the older gentleman (who we now knew was Jerry) to our church, Triune Mercy Center. As we walked from the parking lot, I noticed that Jerry was very short of breath, so I slowed my pace. One of Triune’s social workers, Robin, helped him complete an application for Towers East – a subsidized apartment complex in downtown Greenville that Jerry could afford on his Social Security income of $723 a month. He had been paying $650 a month in cash – 90% of his monthly income – to live at the Economy Inn where he had lived for the last 3 years.
After completing the application Robin dropped a bomb - there would be about a 6 week wait before he would get into an apartment. My eyes widened, and she said, “That is actually a really short wait.” All of Greenville’s shelters were full and temperatures were dipping down to the freezing level in the evenings. Where was this 74-year old man, going to go for 6 weeks?
After church, Russell and I took Jerry back to the Economy Inn so he could get more of his belongings from his room. He struggled up the flight of concrete steps to his room on the second floor and brought down a laundry basket filled with tattered, filthy clothes (which I later discovered were infested with bed bugs). He brought down odd items like a car battery and jumper cables as well as a car tire inflator and we loaded everything into the back of my Subaru.
When Russell saw Jerry bring an old 5-gallon white paint bucket down the steps, he asked, “Jerry, did you use to sit on that bucket outside your door?” “Yep.” Russell shook his head in amazement and said, “Every time I have driven to Home Depot, I have seen you sitting outside your door on that bucket.”
Parked near the staircase to Jerry’s room was an old Chevy pickup truck painted lavender. Even the hubcaps were purple. We asked Jerry who owned the purple truck and he said, “It’s mine.”
In what felt like a miracle, Nick at A Place of Hope helped us find Jerry a room at a boarding house. Over the next two years I helped Jerry stay housed (in 4 different places). We had lunch every week at Long John Silver’s when we went to the grocery store and to pick up his mail. I took him for all of his medical appointments at New Horizon and was grateful that the staff there uncovered and treated his syphilis. It was a sad day when the purple pickup truck was towed away, but Jerry’s living situation was much better than when we first met him. He clearly had untreated mental health issues but was stable enough to live on his own - until January of 2020.
One year ago, I took Jerry to New Horizon and his blood pressure was so low he was at risk of organ failure. He refused to go to the hospital. Two of the doctors at the clinic determined that Jerry was no longer able to make decisions on his own and with the compassionate and caring assistance of Greenville EMS and police he was taken to Memorial Hospital. Jerry was hospitalized, his blood pressure was stabilized and a social worker at Prisma was assigned to his case. The social worker contacted me so that she could understand his situation and begin working to petition the court to allow that a guardian be assigned to handle Jerry’s affairs. Then the pandemic hit. The courts shut down. And Jerry has been at Memorial Hospital for the past year. In September Prisma hired a guardian for Jerry and I expect that in the next couple of months he will be placed in a nursing home.
I was very distressed when I saw that the Economy Inn had reopened. I was even more saddened that a young woman was recently murdered at the motel. Like Jerry, many of the people who are living at places like the Economy Inn face significant mental and physical health issues. Walking alongside Jerry has been one of the most challenging experiences of my life and I could not have done it without the support of Triune and United Ministries and others. I am grateful that he has been cared for so compassionately by both New Horizon and Prisma and I am hopeful that his next home will be found soon.
Susan Stall
Program Director
Village Engage
Read the full version of Susan Stall’s story HERE.
*A crisis involving a condemned motel in January 2018 challenged Greenville County nonprofits and local governments. The partners developed a document that outlines how non-profit agencies and governmental authorities can work together to address an abrupt displacement, when a large number of people are suddenly without shelter due to a motel closing. GHA’s review of the Motel Displacement Response Plan in September 2020 discussed that a zoning ordinance for a short term motel/hotel stay states that occupants are required by management to move to an alternate room after 30 consecutive days so that the room may be inspected/cleaned by the staff. This allows motel owners an opportunity to inspect rooms and make sure guests haven’t taken smoke detectors down so they can cook or smoke in the room and ensure the room is sanitary. Occupants of a short term stay motel do not hold a lease and can be vacated by the property owner immediately. Evictions are issued with a rental unit when the lease is not upheld by the tenant. South Carolina has the highest rate of evictions in the country according to data from the https://evictionlab.org/.