"If you don't have any money in the bank and something happens, you fall through the net, you have no safety net."
This weekend, people who founded and supported the Drop Inn Center in Over the Rhine marked 30 years of providing emergency shelter for people who find themselves homeless and facing life on the streets.
It is impossible to think of the beginnings and development of the Drop Inn Center apart from its most visible founder and spokes person Buddy Gray. For years Buddy seemed to be everywhere afflicting the comfortable to provide shelter for the uncomfortable.
Although the public face of Buddy presented in the media focused on efforts to raise money to keep the Drop Inn open or fighting to save vacant buildings he hoped could be renovated for low income housing, what often got overlooked was the very personal nature of the work Buddy did and the Drop Inn continues.
I am joined this morning by two people who know not only about the institutional history of the Drop Inn Center, but also the personal character of that work. Bonnie Neumeier is one of the co-founders of the Drop Inn, and the long time companion of Buddy Gray. Donald Whitehead is a person who benefited from the services of the center when he was homeless and from the personal relationship he formed with Buddy Gray. Donald became the first homeless person ever elected president of the National Homeless Coalition and also serve as its executive director.