I'm homeless but not forgotten

in #homeless8 years ago (edited)

note from editor: creationlayer. (I am a trusted member in the Bitcoin community and will transfer cash to Brook) I met Brook Demar at the gas station getting some coffee.  I've seen him before and he asked if I could spare some change. I had one dollar left when I came out, and I figured I'd take a moment to say hi. Brook was obviously homeless and living with his wife out of his car. In California it's very expensive to live. In between his thoughts he mentioned he was a writer, and had a lot of stories. I had a realization that he was perfect for steemit, but doesn't have a computer or know technology well. I explained steemit, and he got it and I grabbed his cheap prepaid phone and snapped a picture. I said look I'll transcribe your stories for you over the phone. The money that is earned will go to Brook. I explained the idea of Steem power and the lock in period, he said, "that makes sense you have to give back", so we'll work out a solution for that. While his story is sad, he legitimately writes and is excited theres somewhere he can post so I'll be transcribing part of a novel he has written. So, without further ado here is my first transcribed call with Brook, an intro to him and his life.

Brook-
I'm Brook Demar, my dad was a police officer. I grew up in a real strict life. I had some sports here and there that almost got me in the naval academy in high school and I played soccer in college, I was good. I became homeless in 2012, because my apartment was near the train and it wrecked my hearing, and I was working for labor ready and was lifting too heavy for a couple days and tore my sternum apart which caused a couple of pain induced heart attacks. I've been living for the last 4 years in my car with Cindy, helping her out. We're broke and disabled, except the sign once and awhile generates some money for food or gas, or a cigarette.

My mother and father are deceased and my brother and sister are now too. We're trying to afford a home or a trailer or something to buy to live in. I'm a Christian and go to church when I can. I took care of my mom since I was 15 years old from 1972 to 1996. I turned down an appointment with the marines to go to the naval academy to take care of my mom. My dad called me a deputy sheriff when I was growing up. 

I've done a lot of work, I worked at SLAC (Stanford Linear Accelerator Center), building tunnels there. I worked on a lot of inventions a light weight battery for car batteries, I worked on an electromagnet engine drive motor, I invented a ball cup curve cap flotation system for buildings that sit on the four corners of the foundation.

If I could do what I want, I would organize contributions to people to form a non-profit organization for outreach and help fill in the gaps. I've learned why homeless people won't get the help they want, or can't or won't go to a shelter. Different ways to help the needy then just give them money to inebriate themselves. I'd work to see what I could do to help take care of people for the winter, maybe get the house pods like they have in Portland and Seattle where they're giving away homes to the homeless. There's countless people that donate their time and money for nothing in return just so you don't have to suffer, you got something to eat.

Never forget where you came from, and pay back, and pay forward. Help out others in need, look in the paper for people crying out for help. I pray and I'm kind of in the dark right now, and I know I got stories but I don't know what else to do, I can't lift over twenty pounds because of my job injury to my chest.

I love motocross, I used to ride motocross would love to work on bikes again too.

Thank you, I don't really understand it all but I want to learn and share my stories.

Update 1:
Calling Brook about the post early on: http://vocaroo.com/i/s11JM0NLlRrx

Update 2:
I am booking 3 nights for Brook and his wife in a hotel. He said a hot shower and soft bed will be a great help.

Update 3:
This has really taken off! wow. I spoke to Brook, first we are going to open a bank account for him (I know some hate banks). Then we will go to the thrift store and he can pick out some clothes. We will then go to the apple store and pick out a tablet. I can not promise he will learn but a donor requested that we make an effort to set him up himself. After that he has free reigns, but he said he'd like to get some used tires for his car and a manicure and pedicure for his wife. I am overwhelmed with this support, and it will take me some time to fully process funds, but I think it's better to help with the basics rather than just hand over the lump sum which he agreed.

Update 4:
Brook is very thankful. I've been fronting some expenses. He spent his first time in a hotel for a long time. Today I will be helping him with medication, gas and food. This is the last update to this thread. I will post a complete update with pictures and information, once I am able to shift around SBD.

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Me and my puppy were homeless all winter living in my jeep. We're finally doing better! Best of luck!

i'll make sure to print out the comments and this picture for him.

The kindness of so many people and the things steemit had helped and is helping blows mind, I'm in awe! This is revolutionary! =)

Great idea. 'video' the next meeting and 'break the news to him' gently ;-) And make sure he is sitting down - then post it as we all want to see it (please Gavin). Thanks once more for your humanity. Restore faith in humanity mate - thats what you have/are doing....

Wow, whoever contributed to this comment, it is extremely appreciated. I just realized the link wasn't working. Here's a pic of my pup. No matter what was going on in my life, this guy kept me strong.

thank you, hope you can share your story

I will, it's long and dark. Homelessness, addiction, self-harm, rape, molestation - I'll write an entry with details soon. I'm saving it for when I have enough SP to be heard. I have also been an active and effective activist starting and passing several amendments. =)

That's a sweet puppy!!!

Yeah, he's so damn awesome. I don't know how I got so lucky... You have no idea, he's evdrybodies favorite! =D

This is very sad, but we have the power to turn this man's life around right now. This, is the beauty of this platform. We can come together, learn, discuss, and take care of things as they are happening. Homelessness is a HUGE issue and is only getting worse through the current societal structure. Let's all chip in and help this man get on his feet! Is there a way I can donate more to brook??

Wow, the generosity of this website is finally shining! I was worried but posts like this and a guy living off a dollar a day making posts on a daily basis that make about 10-1000 dollars each! Awe inspiring..

Once in a night club old security man started talking with our company: his story was also right this. He lost his flat in a strange way, he felt sad, only some days before he found that job & everything he had except job were his poems. He asked permission to read them to us. Without any paper he read them about 30 minutes.

Who is your company? Will they listen to my story, even without steem power backing me up? =)

Brave 4, going to alko-zero) After appeared steemit)))))....not)

Absolutely OUTSTANDING idea and congratulations - and hopefully will be the largest 'payout' for any story so far. This is brilliant and shows exactly what steemit can and SHOULD do, once we put our minds to it. Thanks A MILLION Gavin for taking the time in doing this for him.

As I was explaining to a friend of mine yesterday 'Steemit does not just make somebody rich, or its not a get rich quick scheme. It has the power to change peoples lives - thats the point. Thats the ideology. Thats a cause worth 'steem'ing' for.'

It'll stabilize and be more and more effective in no time!

That is such a great idea. We can change somebodys life without having to spend a cent of our own. I am really happy to see brook willl see a nice financial boost now. I wish him best of luck and would love to see him post here one day and how this post influenced his life.

Great story and use case for steemit, this should hit the news with proof of course of the payment.
we now know that we as a community have the power to change lives all around the world.

Give this guy as many upvotes as possible! Maybe he can get a really cheap laptop and get started on public wifi! What an amazing story and I really wish the best for him and his wife.

God bless you Brook! Use some of the money to help others too! You certainly have my upvote bro...

I'll vote this up. Make sure to give us a progress report in about a month so we can have a "before" and "after". I hope this guy gets himself a place to stay, and buys himself a laptop, so he can provide content for Steemit and never be homeless again.

Well said...

This community is just... I can't even describe it. People say it's all about beautiful white girls but this is just how RIGHT the community is.
This is changing people's lives, this is #steemit

Wish you both a lot of success and keep making REAL stories happen!

I hope the people who were complaining about that are the people voting up this post. I want to see a post like this get 1000 upvotes. I want the people who talked about economic inequality to vote for this post.

It was remarkable how fast he got the concept, people giving to others. I'd love to have him do comments, but I literally called him on an old prepaid blackberry, he doesn't have any access.

I love the idea of using steemit for charity! It would be better to have some confirmation for these kind of posts that accumulate a lot of traction without any verification. Not saying you are benefiting off of someone elses back but it did happen on this platform in the past.
I just created free stickers that I'am sending out to people. Worldwide. For free. People could for example use them in order to brand their post images and at the same time verify themself a bit.
They are available here: https://steemit.com/steemit/@dunja/free-steemit-stickers

I have posted my linkedin, it is linked to my username. I am happy to provide any additional confirmation via slack.

I missed the link! I didn't mean to say anything towards you of course just that we need some sort of proper verification for posts so people dont fraud the system. Besides upvoting maybe we could also open an account where people can send micro donations and we distribute the funds accumulated to charity?

I love steemit for this.
We can help anybody with just a click,and it costs us nothing.
It is amazing how we can help out other people.
Im glad that devs of steemit made it :)

Actually, why isn't there a tweet about this from CEX.IO??? https://twitter.com/cex_io

Given how much scamming pervades online, i'd like to have more proof before I give to this cause--not personal, just more is better when dealing with money and I'd like to be assured it's going to the people it's supposed to go to.

Genius! This is so inspirational

I do not work for cex.io any longer.

bump.

and no, i'm not talking about the homeless guy. bump as in upvote. :)

Dunja I agree with your comment. I love this post, but one thing that is a bit disturbing is that I see no proof in this post, of this charity ever happening. I am sure brookdemar, is a great person and did has described in the post above. I applaud his actions. However this excellent system of charity that Steemit facilitates will be open to MAJOR abuse if we are not very careful with how me upvote, and thus allocated the community's resources for this type of activity.

As I member of the Bitshares community ( @Dantheman was the founder of Bitshares) I was privileged to be involved with the development of some of the basic ideas that Steemit employees. One of the important breakthroughs that developed early-on was the fact of paying for work that was done to improve the community/product was possible simply with the issuance of community (bitshares) tokens. This is much like steemit pays for content, charity, development etc. with Steem tokens. Using this system, however created a problem. Many people would be given tokens (read upvoted) on promises to do "XYZ" for the community. However, on many occasions- promises made, tokens issued, but the work would never get done, or would be very substandard. Similarly, the community would allocate tokens for someone to do charity and again many times, we could never be certain of the charity was actually competed.

The solution: These type of reward systems are excellent for fostering charity and improving our world, and we all want that. However if accept heart-felt stories and promises of charity in exchange for up- votes, in short order we will have a huge wave of fraudsters draining the resources for this community under false pretences. To be effective, the system of charity in Steemit needs to employ "pay (upvote) after the fact". ........ First do you charitable actions, the blog about it. Be very up front. Show receipts, smiling faces, whatever it takes to prove to the community the act was done. Only then should the community value the action with upvotes (I'll be the first! :-) .

Soon I foresee we will have a very large community at Steemit. I expect that we will see blogs dedicated exclusively to charity and charitable giving. Over-time these individuals or blogs will build a solid reputation here on Steemit for their charitable acts by following the recommendations above.

This is just one of the lessons we learned the hard way, in the initial experimentation of Bitshares and I hope to pass this lesson on to Steemit users so we can insure our community and platform remains strong.

i really agree with you all we need first is to ensure the rigidity and firmness of this plat form so as to continue the trend

I understand your concerns. I will set the bar high for this one, that is all I can do. I didn't expect such reception. I hope that my update following this makes it clear what standard the community should expect.

you make very good points but personally I think that this post will give value to steemit even if it is a scam... if you understand what I mean!!!

PS we must be for sure very carefully what we upvote!

I was just wondering about the issues you raise. I love cheritable deeds but I feel very suspicious about this here. Lots of people want to do good and help others, but I don't know what really happend here. I'm by no means an expert on crypto, social media platforms or anything around steemit. Just have a feeling that something is fishy. Having cruised around some Bitcoin forums, the feeling just got stronger, since people who do know a lot about this are talking. I would hate some poor guys plight being exploited for someones agenda.

In a world of so many unfortunate people who have lost friends, family and home! and really want to help everyone to find their own happiness ! this man is very lucky ! I wish him good luck , now he can begin a completely different life ! Steemit can affect a lot of people ! Thanks to the creators !

That is one of the beautiful things about Steemit. It's opening the crypto world to loads of people of all backgrounds, and it's so easy to understand the concepts.

yeah that's why nobody is giving me shit

This post is one of the most brilliant and touching Steem has seen so far. This should be in the news. Thank you @creationlayer

So far the Steemit community has giving you $1518

What has happened? (Mr Demar answered)

Steemit you're just way too awesome! Now let's take this story to the daily news. No matter how much time it'll take for this kind of story, these won't only make the daily news they will replace all news services like we know them today and make for a much better world, a world we can't even foresee right now.

I'd love see steem gain mass adoption. This is a way to help make that happen while also helping this man. Win-win. Id try to do it. Ill try contacting my local newspaper.

Awesome post!

oh he's a happy guy, ya know. He's understands and is dealing with stuff, but maybe a little push up could help. We never know, but I'll do my best.

I also helped out a homeless man, he now understands the economics of STEEM!


Check out my post!