A Stranger and a Basketball

On a Saturday evening before Christmas, my husband and I planned a date night to shop for a few gifts, see the Christmas lights, and enjoy a meal on old Sutter Street in our hometown of Folsom, CA.?The evening was pretty perfect – it was cold and raining, but every now and then, the freezing rain would turn to snow. A rare and lovely sight in Folsom.

After a delicious meal, we walked down the covered and twinkle-lit boardwalk to our favorite candy shop for dessert. Bundled in our scarves and warm jackets, we sat down outside on a bench to enjoy our treats. The scene was made extra special as next to us were two tiny, young girls hammering out jingle bells on an old upright piano under the watchful eye of their parents.

As we smiled at whom we assumed was the girls’ father, he suddenly apologized, and quickly picked up some belongings from under the bench where we sat – all tightly wrapped in dark black trash-bags.?My husband and I had not even noticed the bundles and were surprised when the young man grabbed them and walked quickly away. As we watched him leave, we noticed that on his back was a backpack and tied to that was, what could only be, a basketball, tightly wrapped in a plastic grocery sack to protect it from the elements. ?My husband, a former high school basketball coach, expressed concern that we had not realized the handsome young man was not part of the young family next to us, but was, in fact, probably homeless.?We both wished we’d realized it sooner and could have offered him something to make the cold night easier.

On our walk back to our car, we popped into a cozy wine bar on the same street to watch a pair of acoustic guitar players. ?Sipping wine and facing the holiday scene outdoors behind the guitarist, my husband noticed the same young man saunter back by. ?Not missing a beat, he turned to me and shared that he’d be right back and hurried out the door. About 15 minutes later, he returned and paid our bill. I asked whether he’d been able to offer the young man a little help. He replied, “The kid needs more than money. It’s freezing outside. He needs a roof over his head tonight. Will you come meet him and see if your gut agrees with mine that we should just bring him home?”??So, off we went back to the bench next to the piano where we first encountered him.

Looking this stranger in the eye, I introduced myself and impulsively asked, “Do you have a good soul?”?(No judgement – I had no experience on how to gauge a perfect stranger’s fitness to come home with us!)? However, he nodded his head yes. ?We asked if he was on drugs. He held our gaze and said no. We asked where he planned to stay that night. He shrugged and said “probably, outside near the library.” My husband asked him if we were to offer him a place to stay that night, would he accept? He shrugged, but said yes. I asked him if he was hungry. He replied that he was.

We bought him dinner down the street and visited for a little bit.?We learned he was 28 years old – about the same age as our youngest son.?He was quiet. Shy. Or was he just reluctant to speak too much? We didn’t know. But he seemed grateful for the meal. ?He said he was down on his luck. His mom had lost her apartment and was living in her car. He did not know where his father was, and his half-siblings were scattered out of the area. He was raised in Sacramento (about 30 miles away), but took the light rail to Folsom because “the library offers free phone charging stations and had some safe, covered places to stay at night.”? Against every warning bell, we offered to bring him home to take a warm shower and stay in one of our son's empty bedrooms, out of the freezing rain.

Needless to say, we both slept that night with one eye open. Why hadn't we simply taken him to a hotel and paid for a room??He was a complete stranger. ?A homeless stranger. Perhaps a conman. Maybe worse. But something in his spirit said he was kind. And then, there was that basketball. That was the clincher.?To my husband, anyone who would carry a basketball as one of his only worldly possessions had learned something about life through the art of the game. I think my husband saw in him many of the kids he’d coached over the years – kids who just craved someone to believe in them, someone to encourage them, someone to root for them.

As luck would have it, our next-door neighbor had spent her career involved with social services. After admonishing my husband for bringing a complete stranger into our home and encouraging him to be careful, our neighbor gave him contact names and numbers for two local organizations which offered “homeless navigator” type support.?One specialized in “finding housing” and the other in “finding jobs.” ?Hooray – we had resources!?

We eagerly called both numbers only to learn that neither were open on Sundays. What to do??After making a big breakfast of bacon and eggs that next morning, we shared with our house guest, Kyron, that we had planned to go to church. It happened to be at a church we had never been to before, but we’d heard from a friend about their children’s choir and thought it would be a joyful service.?We offered Kyron a choice. He could pack up and we would drop him off wherever he wanted to go, or he could join us (and our 32-year-old son who was meeting us there) for church. He opted for the latter. So, we bundled up and went off to that new church together.

It was a small church, and the pastor gave a lovely sermon about how Joseph overcame tremendous adversity to help raise the Son of God…. emphasizing that nothing was impossible with God in your corner. It felt like the preacher was talking directly to us. Kyron listened respectfully throughout. After church, we walked back out into the freezing rain. We explained to Kyron that we had called the homeless navigators in Folsom and could only make appointments for the following day. If he was interested in exploring that type of help, he was welcome to stay with us for one more night. He accepted.

Upon arriving home from church that day, we received a call from our 29-year-old son who lived out of the area. When asked what was new, we shared the odd story of how we brought “a kid home with us” the night before.?Our son emphatically corrected us stating that the person we brought into our home was not, in fact, 'a kid', but a 'grown (expletive) man', and admonished us to be cautious, adding angrily that we were most assuredly crazy. We promised to be careful, sharing that this stranger had very kind eyes, had gone to church with us, and that one of his three worldly possessions was a basketball. He could not be all bad.

While the storm raged on outside that Sunday afternoon, the four of us watched football in front of a fire. With the game decided early, the three guys elected to watch a movie. They voted on a family favorite, Remember the Titans. When that movie was over, and dinner wasn’t quite ready, my husband handed the Netflix controls to Kyron and suggested he pick the next movie. Any movie.?Kyron typed in ‘Coach Carter.’ ?We all watched it together. It was such an interesting choice as, for those who have not seen it, it’s the true story of an inner-city Nor-Cal basketball coach who believed that making grades trumped playing basketball. He held his team to very high standards in order to qualify to play. In the movie, Coach Carter expressly stated that most young athletes will be washed up after the last buzzer goes off unless they focus on their grades and make self-discipline a part of their daily life. At the end of the movie, we learn that six of the players on the team went on to college and to lead very successful lives. My husband asked Kyron if he had played basketball in high school.?He responded, “a little.”?They kibitzed about their shared love of the sport, but as Kyron was not forthcoming on his personal experience playing ball, my husband didn’t probe much further.

Feeling more relaxed around one another, we enjoyed a traditional Sunday evening dinner and tried to learn how he found himself in his current situation. Sadly, we learned that he had not held a job for many years. His last job was a valet parker in downtown Sacramento. Prior to that he had worked in retail off and on. When asked why he no longer held a job, he responded vaguely that “he had applied a few times, but gave up.” He shared that it was hard to apply when you didn’t have an address. We asked if he had been in trouble with the law. He said no. We asked again if he dealt drugs. Again, no. We asked about his family, his friends. Many had apparently moved out of the area, but he often "couch surfed" with a few, here and there. Possibly na?ve on our part, but he seemed to be answering honestly.

We questioned how he got by, and pondered how he could possibly own two cell phones without employment. He said they were provided free from our government, and that he didn’t need to pay any monthly service fees for them. He said he received other government benefits that helped him "get by." ?We gently inquired if 'not working' had become a lifestyle choice. He said “sorta, I guess.” We asked what he did all day to occupy his time. He said he liked to watch Tik Tok videos on his phone and "try to learn stuff." It was depressing and certainly worlds away from the lessons of the movie he'd selected. Not understanding the true cause of his current plight put us on uneven footing to know how best to encourage him. Was he lazy or unlucky or simply a victim of a system designed to help? We finally questioned if he would be open to a new direction for his life - asking if he'd be willing to work if we could help him find a job. He said yes.

The next day, Monday, we called the two organizations and scheduled appointments at each. One was at 11am, the other at 2pm.?We suggested that Kyron take another warm shower, pack up his bags, and be ready to leave after breakfast. ?Navigating our own jobs, my husband and I carved out time to take him to the meetings together. ?As we sat in the lobby helping him fill out paperwork at our first stop, we were so hopeful that we’d found folks who could truly help. ?However, as we sat down with the "professional homeless navigator,” we quickly realized that housing solutions would prove elusive. The navigator pretty much opened with “there is no room in the inn” for Kyron.?No housing available in Folsom. Nothing. Nada. And, because he was not actually “from Folsom” but had found his way here from Sacramento, she could not “legally help him even if there was something open.”?My husband asked, “What if his last known address was listed as our home address, could she help him then?"?She sadly shook her head no, but offered a list of emergency shelters, mostly at churches throughout the county, where he could stay when it was freezing outside. I thought my husband was going to punch his fist through the wall as there seemed to be roadblocks at every turn during this brief and very disappointing conversation. We elected to remain optimistic and pin our hopes on the second meeting later that day which might help him find employment.

With a few hours to spare, we opted to drive over to the outlet mall which was next to the light rail station in town. ?We asked Kyron – if you secured a job here, could you keep it? Would you try? Kyron responded that he would try and that he’d apply “anywhere that was hiring.” We asked, have you ever been to this outlet mall? He said yes, quite often.?We replied, “then you should know that everyone is hiring over the holidays!”?Further, that, “God has blessed you with good looks, kind eyes, and a great smile. You can work if you want to. Apply and show up. Work hard. Be on time. Be polite. Go the extra mile. Are you willing?”?He again responded with an emphatic yes and suggested he’d really like to work at the Nike outlet. We walked in, found the manager, and she explained all applications were online, but took his name and warmly declared she’d be on the lookout for his application.?Next, we went to every other sports/shoe store at the outlet mall, met with the managers, and learned their specific application protocols.

With about an hour to spare before our meeting with the “jobless navigator,” we elected to go to a coffee shop, order hamburgers, and help him complete all five of his applications. He seemed adept at navigating the online forms and fairly quick at typing in responses on his phone, including an in-depth personality/skills assessment for Nike. ?Two application hurdles he faced immediately, however, were 1) not having a local address and 2) his employment history.?For the former, we offered him to use our address.?For the latter, my husband offered to be listed as a reference, sharing his work number. If anyone called regarding entry level employment for Kyron, my husband would vouch for him.?

Finishing up the online applications, we left for the anticipated jobless-navigator meeting. Sadly, once again, we were told right off the bat that there was “nothing that could be done to help him since he wasn’t technically ‘from’ Folsom.” The navigator wanted to know where he planned to live if he found a job in Folsom, and he responded that he'd figure it out - he could take the light rail in. She then asked if he had met with the “homeless navigator”? Ugh.?It was a viscous circle with no easy solutions.

By now, it was almost 3pm on Monday, and I had a work call scheduled at 3:30pm that I could not miss. ?The evening prior we had agreed that the housing arrangement in our home would come to an end that day. So, in an awkward and sad moment, I hugged Kyron goodbye and encouraged him to continue trying to secure employment, reminding him that he was blessed with more talent and skill than he realized. We suggested that if he’d like to meet up with us again, he could find us the following Sunday at the church we had attended together the day before, which was across from the library where he often visited. We’d be looking for him at the 10:30am service.

I departed for my meeting and my husband offered to drive him anywhere he’d like to go. Armed with the list of open shelters and a bag of food from the homeless navigator, Kyron suggested the light rail station near the outlet mall. The rain was coming down again, and my husband was feeling bad about having to say goodbye.?He’d given him $200 the first evening he met him, prior to the offer to bring him home, so he knew he had a little bit of money on hand, but it was still hard to part ways. Against his better judgement, he decided to exchange personal cell numbers with Kyron and encouraged him to call if he needed a “lifeline.” Kyron thanked him and climbed out of the car with his plastic-wrapped bags and that basketball… and walked off to the light rail station without looking back.

Sitting in the parking lot in the rain, my husband waited until he saw him safely climb aboard the train. Then he decided to Google his name. In helping Kyron fill out the applications, we'd learned his full legal name, and my husband was curious if anything would come up offering more insight about him.?It did. A website called MaxPreps popped up showcasing his high school basketball team photo and stats. Turns out he not only played, but was the starting point guard at a Sacramento high school. And it appeared that he had been a star player. Feeling like there was a missed opportunity to connect further, my husband quickly texted him and shared that he’d pulled up his stats and that he was impressed. He asked him to stay in touch. Kyron didn’t respond.

The following Sunday, we looked for him every time the door opened in the back of the little church across from the library. He didn’t show.?Our hearts were heavy as we approached the week of Christmas hoping he was warm and safe and dry, but we clung to the hope that he had benefited in some way by our time together.

While this tale doesn’t have a storybook ending, it was an emotional few days balancing on the blade between compassion and crazy. As many professionals in the field of helping-the-homeless have since told us, it was probably unwise to bring Kyron home. ?Friends asked us why we took the chance with him. ?For my husband, it was that grocery-bag wrapped basketball that made him look twice and take a leap of faith on a young man who seemed like a former player in need of direction. For me, first and foremost, I trusted my husband’s instincts. But, also, having served in the field of destination services for the past 20+ years, offering a bit of guidance and compassion to help a stranger traverse a challenging landscape felt natural.

As I conclude this account of our weekend, I realize there are a lot of big topics that could be tackled here (homelessness, government policies, community solutions, and so much more), but those are too big for today. For now, we simply hold out hope that life will improve for this young man.

Wishing you and yours a hopeful 2024.