FLORENCE, SC (WBTW) – The Executive Director of House of Hope of the Pee Dee went undercover as a homeless man for one week.
Bryan Braddock said he’s worked with House of Hope for five years.
“I’ve never actually been homeless,” said Braddock. “I come from an addictions ministry, and I am a recovering addict myself.”
Braddock said because of his personal experiences, it was more difficult to relate to people who were struggling with homelessness, since he had never experienced it.
“I could give tips, and tell them what they needed to do to get back on track with their life, but I couldn’t understand what it felt like to be hungry, and have fear, and sleep on the streets or check into a shelter,” he said.
Braddock said he was looking for an opportunity to get to know more about homelessness, when he met Byon “Know Ca$h” Mccullough.
“We had breakfast, we started talking, and he told me about his Youtube page, and his following, and his homeless experience,” Braddock explained. “I told him he had a platform, and a place to put a message, and you could show me what it’s like to be homeless, and we can communicate that to other people.”
Know Ca$h said he’s been homeless for more than three years, and knows all-too-well the effects of homelessness.
“When I first came home from prison, because I’m a reformed drug dealer,” said Know Ca$h, “I came home, and I knew that selling drugs wasn’t going to be an option for me again.”
Know Ca$h agreed to help Braddock with this journey, and they decided to go ‘Unsheltered’, as homeless men for one week.
“He [Braddock] asked me, ‘What can I do to get a better understanding of it?’,” Know Ca$h told News13. “I was blatantly honest with him, and said ‘You don’t really understand this until you’ve gone through it’, and I didn’t know what I was doing by telling him that because he went back, and came up with this great idea.”
Braddock said he wanted to have the experience in another city so nobody would recognize him or be able to help him.
“I didn’t want to have any kind of edge, or have contacts, or people in the area that would augment the experience,” said Braddock. “I wanted it be genuine. As genuine as this could be, you know, because at the end, I was going to go home, and that was something I couldn’t change.”
The pair traveled 145 miles to Augusta, Georgia on Mar. 8.
“We packed light,” Braddock said. “I had a few layers of clothing, I had a backpack, a lighter, a water bottle, some hand wipes, and that was about it.”
Braddock said the two didn’t have any food, or money, on their trip.
“The first day, we walked about six miles in the rain,” he recalled. “It was two days before we ate, and we had to find shelter outside.”
The Executive Director said he grew his beard out for six months to get into character.
“It was the hardest week of my life,” Braddock said. “It was physically hard, emotionally hard, spiritually difficult, so all of those things combined made it one of the toughest week of my life, if not the toughest.
Braddock said the first night stuck out to him the most, and was the hardest on him.
“It was cold. I was wet,” he said. “We couldn’t build a fire because everything was wet. If it had been a few degrees colder, I was thinking ‘I’m not going to be able to make it.'”
Know Ca$h said there were many things that stuck out to him while they were in Georgia.
“We went to church under a bridge,” Know Ca$h said. “It was a church for the homeless, and what they did, was they served them [the homeless] before they had service. Most churches you go to, they wait until the service is over before you can eat, but they fed the homeless people before service, and each and every homeless person ate their food, and then stayed there for the service.”
He said that same church passed around a collection plate for orphans.
“We saw homeless people go up, and actually, put what little they had into the collection plate,” he said.
Braddock said it was heartwarming to watch people give everything they have for others.
He said he wanted to experience different levels of homelessness during his trip.
“We slept outside a couple of nights, we slept in an abandoned warehouse a couple of nights, and we checked into a local shelter for one night,” he said.
Braddock said he didn’t receive a lot of guidance from people who weren’t homeless. He said he was shocked to see homeless people stepped in, more than others, to help him.
“Talking to the local homeless community, they told us where the food bank was, they told us where the shelter was, and they told us that we had to get a shelter clearance form,” Braddock said.
Braddock said he was shocked to learn that the homeless needed to go to the local sheriff’s office to request permission to stay at the shelter.
“They and to run our background check to even be able to stay in a shelter,” he said.
Braddock said he even panhandled during the experience.
“We panhandled, and I didn’t raise one, single dollar all week,” he said. “It felt degrading, it felt embarrassing.”
The Executive Director said it’s illegal to actively panhandle, so he made a sign to ask for something other than money.
“Seeing people just walk past me,” he recalled. “My sign said ‘Need Your Kindness’, and for people to not say hello, it felt empty, and isolated,” he continued. “There could be ten people on the street, and you felt alone.”
Braddock said his biggest takeaway was the lack of community outreach.
“Not a single person asked me what I needed, where I was from, if I needed help, or assistance,” he said. “At House of Hope we do a good job with food, shelter, and clothing,” he continued. “But we don’t do a great job of outreach, and that’s what hit me the most.”
Braddock said he plans to get out in the community, and has even started to carry snacks to hand out, in an effort to extend a helping hand.
