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Tuesday, June 12, 2007
With aid from ministry, Uncle Sam, life is better
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
If Paris Hilton thinks she’s in peril, she needs to experience life through the eyes of Craig A. Molnar.
He lived in the woods until the Lawrenceville Cooperative Ministry got him a room in an extended-stay motel. Molnar, 46, sings its praises.
“I’m fine,” he told me Monday as we chatted in Room 106 of the Villa Inn Lodge & Suites in Lawrenceville.
Actually, he’s just better.
He excuses himself to whiff an inhalant that sits next to an oxygen mask.
He shows me a satchel that’s filled with prescriptions — 14 “maintenance medications” to aid his diseased lungs.
Three Mondays ago, he had a breathing attack. Paramedics rushed him to Gwinnett Medical Center, where he stayed eight days. Doctors released him on the condition that he either get a medical alert alarm or cellphone. The cooperative ministry got him a phone and bought his medicine, so Molnar went home.
I first met Molnar in February when I wrote about the county’s homeless population. It’s not so invisible anymore, and I’d imagine boosters wish those who sleep in the woods and beg for money near interstate ramps would hop a GTS bus to the ATL.
Advocates say that people like Molnar show up routinely at cooperative ministries across Gwinnett. It’s a population that’s hard to count, but consider this: Last year local schools served about 3,000 homeless kids.
Before Monday, I’d last seen Molnar at the Lawrenceville Cooperative Ministry’s annual luncheon, where supporters stressed the growing need for such services. He told me the Lawrenceville ministry, namely director Linda Freund, had helped him get a replacement Social Security card, and was working on securing benefits pay.
Molnar, a Michigan native, had worked since 1971. He left home when he was a kid and eventually became a carny, a gig that brought him to metro Atlanta in the late 1990s.
He had grown tired of the carnival life, so he stayed in the region to work construction. He’d always suffered from bronchitis and asthma, but one flare-up led to a diagnosis of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
The repeat attacks caused him to lose weeks of work, and as a result, several jobs. By late 2003, he had become homeless, and he made the woods in and around Lawrenceville home. He courted day jobs and became a regular at the Lawrenceville ministry.
On Saturday, Molnar left a voice mail. He had received his first disability check with back pay. He opened a checking account Monday and put down advance rent money for his room.
While we talked Monday, he pulled out a stack of letters — unpaid bills, mostly medical. He had spent the morning trying to contact creditors to let them know he would pay what he could.
His monthly check will be about $650, and he may be eligible for government help with medicines that will run about $2,000 a month.
The long-term plan is to move into an assisted-living facility where Molnar, unfit for employment, wants to run errands and do odd jobs.
Last week, he and a friend went to Rhodes Jordan Park in Lawrenceville. Looking at some of the people in the park was like peering in the mirror, back when he was homeless, in peril.
“I can see the look in their eyes,” he said.
Rick Badie’s column appears on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Call him at 770-263-3875 or e-mail rbadie@ajc.com.
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