Homeless in the High Desert

Indeed, there are homeless people who fit one, two — even a handful of the above descriptions. There may even be a few who fit all categories. But none of these characteristics apply to all homeless people. To make such sweeping generalizations of the homeless is akin to declaring that all birds can fly.

And this becomes the first hurdle in trying to deal with the homeless.

There are many faces of homelessness.

When someone asks for help at High Desert Homeless Services in Victorville, case manager Lorrie Mendoza must quickly size up the person. Not just anyone can take advantage of the services the shelter on Amargosa Road at Anacapa Road offers.

“We don’t allow anyone here who has drug or alcohol problems,” she said. “Who you’d want in your own home is who we want here.”The shelter takes in people who are homeless because they lost their jobs or income, their landlords evicted them, the city condemned their house, a fire destroyed their home or even because they came out on the short end of a family fight, Mendoza said.

“And some people are scammed and lose their home,” she said. “For example, someone will rent out a house that they don’t actually own.” Then they’ll collect rent until the true owners discover the tenants living there and kick them out, she said.

Many are people who are just passing through, she said, modern-day hobos.

But if someone seeking shelter is on probation or parole, the shelter requires them to produce a letter of approval from their probation or parole officer — no letter, no service.

The shelter also turns away people who appear to be either mentally unstable or who are prone to violence, Mendoza said.

And it turns away victims of domestic violence — they don’t want angry spouses crashing their way into the shelter in search of the victim, she said.

Up to 55 people a night — the average is about 30 — receive food, a bed and assistance in solving the problems that brought them to the shelter. Mendoza refers the rest to other places better geared to their particular problems. Those who stay must take an active role in solving their problems, she said.

They must help out with the daily maintenance of the shelter and they must look for a job.

If they do, they have a good chance of straightening out their lives — even if it’s a short-term success.

“It works for the majority of them,” she said. “What they put into it they get out of it.”

Tim Neilson bottomed out and ended up at the High Desert Homeless shelter. His downward spiral is a typical story. He fell apart emotionally following the breakup of a relationship and ended up without a place to stay, he said. His friends were willing to take him in — at least for a while.

“It wasn’t too long before I tapped out all of my friends,” he said.

The next thing he knew, he was on the street. Some people he met at Narcotics Anonymous told him about the shelter in Victorville, but he said it took him three days to get up the nerve to go there and ask for help.

“I was desperate, shocked, embarrassed, broke and too proud,” he said. “I have always worked — I just couldn’t believe it was me.”

His first night there was the most difficult, he said. He couldn’t sleep, so he sought help or guidance or advice from Larry McLaughlin, the night manager.

“He talked to me for an hour or two,” Neilson said. “He said to me, ‘Maybe there’s a purpose you don’t know about. Maybe you should see all of this as an opportunity.’ Well, he was right. It was indeed an opportunity.”

He stayed there five days longer than the 90 they allow, he said. He was so grateful for the help he agreed to come back as a volunteer. On his first night, he served dinner to the homeless and realized something was happening, he said.

“I got addicted to the feeling I was getting,” he said.

Today, Neilson is still a familiar face at the shelter, but he’s no longer a client — he works there full time as a case manager.

“Now I’m a finger in a hand that makes it operate here,” he said. “When they leave here — no longer homeless and with their pride intact — it’s a wonderful feeling.”

At Barstow’s Desert Manna shelter, Robert Ebersole tells a similar story.

“I was at rock bottom. I came in here and said, ‘I’ve had enough. I need a job — I need more than just food stamps,’ ” he said. “A voice from God said, ‘Is this what you want in your life?’ So I did what needed to be done.”

Ebersole also stayed on to help others who find themselves with no means. He’s now the client representative there — a position required under a federal law that ensures a voice for people staying in homeless shelters. He shares Neilson’s desire to help the more motivated homeless persons find a way out.“You’ve got to want to help yourself,” Ebersole said.

But in reality, the successes at the High Desert Homeless and Desert Manna shelters represent only a fraction of the so-called homeless in the High Desert. It doesn’t require an exhaustive search to find the others.

It’s difficult to drive along any major thoroughfare that connects with Interstate 15 and not see a homeless person either pushing an overloaded shopping cart, foraging for aluminum cans along the road, sleeping behind a commercial building or sitting near an intersection or freeway off ramp with a sign that promises they’ll work for you in trade for some food.

“They come around here all the time,” Pablo Romero, the night manager at Richie’s Diner in Victor-ville, said.

“There’s one guy who checks the coin slots in all the vending machines and newspaper racks a couple of times a day. When I see him I tell people ‘There’s the owner of the machines,’ ” Romero said, smiling. “About three times a year they take meat from our cookers outside. One woman came in last night and grabbed a cinnamon roll and ran out.”

Romero can only remember one time when he felt threatened by a homeless person.

“A man came in with some raw meat and asked me to cook it. I told him I couldn’t do it — I’d lose my job. He said, ‘Hey, I’m homeless,’ but I still said I couldn’t.” Then the homeless man asked Romero if he wanted to fight.

“I picked up a big cooking tool and said, ‘OK, you want to fight?’ ” The man took his uncooked meat and left, Romero said.

Victorville Mayor Pro Tem Bob Hunter said City Hall still receives a lot of calls from citizens who complain of feeling intimidated by beggars and also receives calls from the owners of local businesses who say homeless people are chasing away customers.

“It’s difficult because we don’t have any anti-annoyance laws here,” he said. “The other complaint we get is that people are afraid to take their children to the parks where the homeless people sit and drink alcohol.”

The park they complain about most is Forrest Park at Sixth and D streets along the railroad tracks in Victorville.

It’s here that a group of anywhere between four and 20 homeless people gather during daylight hours. Most of them sleep in a small camp next to the Mojave River. A few others bunk up behind businesses or take up residence in abandoned buildings near old downtown.

A city ordinance prevents them from loitering in the park after dark — although it’s not uncommon to see them in the late evenings gathered under the lights that illuminate the parking lot and the area where passengers wait to board the twice-a-day Amtrak train. And indeed some of them are — by their own admission — often under the influence of alcohol, rock cocaine or Mexican black heroin.

They function as a quasi-family — a protective alliance that seems be unique among those in the homeless scene in the United States. They’ve been a fixture in the park for so long they no longer have to go looking for food — a different church group brings them a full-course meal every afternoon, free of charge.

Their drug and alcohol consumption would certainly prevent them from seeking shelter at High Desert Homeless Services or Barstow’s Desert Manna.

But that doesn’t seem to matter to them — they’ll tell you. Most of them are on the streets by choice.

The few who say they want to return to the mainstream world can’t seem to shake the demons that cast them onto the streets or can’t shake the drugs or alcohol that help kill the pain.

“What do I need money for?” he said. “I can pay my rent and phone, buy cigarettes and groceries and still have money left over to shop for clothes at the thrift store.”

He stands barely 5 feet tall and measures his weight in double digits. He buys boys clothes. He’s remarkably well groomed and always wears the cleanest of threads. He tells people he’s 75, but if they were to check his identification, they’d see he’s only 73. He’ll be 74 in December.

“I like telling people I’m 75. It has a nice ring to it.”

He tells people he’s living the straight life now. He doesn’t drink much, doesn’t take people’s money anymore and the only thing he lies about is his age. But in his lifetime, Walton has pulled off just about every kind of scam imaginable, he said. If they gave out awards for best performance by a hobo, he’d have a shelf of Oscars.

“The key to scamming people is to put on a good act,” he said. “You have to prepare for it, and you have to live the character you’re portraying. You have to be that person.”

The targets are almost always trusting, caring people with big hearts, he said. In a sense, Walton believes he’s doing a favor for the person who helps him, he said.

“This guy works downtown in a high-rise office building. He just drove away from a $200,000 home. His dog eats better than I do. And waiting back there is a beautiful wife and two kids. So I give him something to talk about when he gets back home. He can scare the wife and kids when he tells them he picked up a hitchhiker this morning and took him into the city.”

But Walton really wasn’t trying to go anywhere in particular. He was hitchhiking to make money. He talks about it unashamedly with a devilish grin and a no-doubt-about-it East Coast accent — a blend of his native Philadelphia, some New Jersey and a lot of New York City.

“If you do it right, you can hitch a ride and end up with some nice cash in your pocket,” he said.

Walton said he would typically make up a handwritten sign with the name of the next big city. Then he would find the best freeway onramp and stand with his head down.

“You don’t want to make eye contact that makes it look like you’re soliciting,” he said. “I always look down toward the ground. It’s a psych thing. He has the car. He sees you with your dirty thumb out there in the morning sunlight and he thinks you have been standing out there all night.”
When someone would pick him up, Walton would shyly say, “Thanks.” Nothing more.

Then, he would look out the window and wait for the inevitable question.

The first would be “Where are you headed?” Walton said. “If I were hitching from Barstow to San Bernardino, I’d tell them I’m going to Palm Desert to see my granddaughter. I promised her I’d be there for her birthday tomorrow.”

Then the person would likely ask where he slept the night before.

“Oh, I didn’t sleep at all. It’s too dangerous for an old man. I just walked around Barstow all night,” he would say. “After that I’d just remain quiet and let his brain go to work. Then when we get near San Bernardino I’d give him a sob story about how hungry I am and would he drop me off at a restaurant where I might find some kind of work even for a couple of bucks and a meal.”

Walton would never directly ask the driver for money, he said. Instead, he would sit quietly and hope the driver would stop at a shopping center.

“They’d almost always ask me to stay in the car while they ran an errand,” he said. “I knew what they were going to do, but I didn’t want to act too excited. They would go to an ATM but they wouldn’t give me the money until they dropped me off at a restaurant.”

As he would get out of the car, the man would shake his hand and, at the same time, place one or two folded $20 bills in Walton’s right hand, he said.

“I’d act surprised and say, ‘God bless you, Sir.’ Then I’d go into the restaurant and sit where he could see me. You see, the guy would always drive around the block a few times to make sure I was telling him the truth. After a while, I’d leave the restaurant and head back to the freeway onramp and hold up a ‘Barstow’ sign. On a good day, I could make two round trips and end up with $60 or more.”

On Sundays, Walton would target another group of caring people, he said.

“I’d put one of those fish symbols on my sign and, sure enough, I’d get picked up by a good Christian family,” he said. “The only difference is I’d have to pray with them in the car. A lot of times they’d actually pull off the road and we’d all hold hands and pray.”

If they were on their way home from church, he said, he could count on a big Sunday dinner and a clean bed. Maybe they’d even hand him a few dollars following the big breakfast.

But if they were on their way to church Walton knew it could be a bonanza, especially if it was a small, country church, he said.

“They’d ask me if I wanted to join them at church. I would always reply, ‘Of course.’ We’d all walk in together but I’d sit in the last row, all by myself, in my dirty clothes with my backpack. Sure as ever, they’d whisper something to the pastor and, somewhere during his sermon, he’d point back to where I was and welcome me, a brother just passing through.

“When the sermon was over, I’d gather my things and walk out before anyone else and slowly head for the road,” Walton said. “I had to time it right because a handful of the people from the congregation would call out to me or chase me down and start giving me money, sometimes lots of money. And, again, someone might offer to take me home for that hot meal.”

Another favorite scheme would unfold in a fast food restaurant at lunch time or dinner time when it was busy and people were in a hurry, he said.

“I’d order an average meal, nothing too big or fancy,” he said, “and then when the clerk would tell me how much I owed I’d start fumbling through all my pockets and even in my backpack looking for the money I knew was in there somewhere. It would drive the people behind me crazy. After a while someone would step up and pay for my meal just so they could get to the front of the line quicker.”

He had good luck with a scam he used on bigger restaurants, he said.

“I’d go in the kitchen door and look for the lowest-level employee I could find, usually the dishwasher. I’d tell him I was hungry and willing to work. He’d get the manager and the manager would always tell the chef to cook me a good meal,” Walton said. “They’d sit me at that little table in the kitchen where the lowly employees eat. I’d make sure the waitresses all saw me there.

“Then I’d go outside where everyone could see me through the windows, and I’d start cleaning up the parking lot. No one asked me to, I’d just do it. When each waitress would get off work, she’d come outside and give me a big hunk of her tip money. It never failed.”

There were times when he would get caught and he would be forced to stand in front of a desk sergeant, a judge or even an angry priest or pastor, he said.

That’s when he’d turn to his secret weapon: he calls it “The Lip.” He’s done it a thousand times, he said, and can turn it on in an instant. He nervously wrings his hands, drops his head, lowers his eyebrows and nervously looks down, then up, then down again. He even creates tears. The most convincing part, however, is the quivering lower lip. It quivers like that of a 3-year-old.

“Then I say, hesitatingly, ‘Sir, I, I’m an alcoholic and I can’t get work and I’m hungry and I was just trying to eat.’ Ninety-nine times out of 100 they send me off with a severe tongue lashing.”

The other 1 percent of the time Walton would find himself in jail or prison, he said. His worst stint was in the state penitentiary in Huntsville, Texas.

“You don’t want to go to prison in Texas,” he said. “It’s just like it was in the movie ‘Cool Hand Luke.’ At least it was when I was there.”

Walton usually ended up behind bars for passing bad checks, he said.

“Back when banks left stacks of blank counter checks lying all around I could sign in to a hotel, stay three or four days and pay with one of the bad checks,” he said. “But if I got caught, it was hard to avoid going to jail.”

Today, Walton just observes, he said. He lives not too far from where the homeless congregate and is able to watch them pulling the same scams he pulled for years.

“Every penny you give them goes to booze or drugs,” he said. “And if you give them food, you’d better watch them eat it or they’ll sell it and buy their wine or drugs.”

It’s not a cup of coffee most of them need to give them that jolt of energy and that temporary feeling of well-being — some of them have addictions that are much more demanding.

Whoever has enough tobacco from the night before will, without asking, roll as many makeshift cigarettes as possible and then pass them out to the other homeless comrades — just to tide them over.

Once in a while, someone will still have some beer or some malt liquor or even a few swigs of Southern Comfort to share — just to help take off the edge until someone delivers what they really need — rock cocaine.

It’s a typical beginning of a typical early autumn day in the life of a not-so-typical group of displaced persons. They call themselves “the family.” No, they’re not related by blood — they’re related by circumstance. They've fallen through — or forced their way through — the cracks of the system. It’s a system that’s supposed to help homeless people jump start their lives and steer themselves back to a normal, productive lifestyle.

Their makeshift river camp is located about where Eighth Street would reach the Mojave River if it didn’t dead end at D Street in Victorville. On this morning, two of the family members head out to D Street to raise some quick cash. They’ll need at least $10 — crack doesn’t come much cheaper in Victorville.

It’s not a tough assignment — panhandling isn’t a difficult task here — especially near gas stations where interstate travelers stop, stretch their legs and glug down a soda.

“Can you spare some change so I can get a cup of coffee?” or “Excuse me, I’m fifty cents short of a bus ticket home. Could you possibly help?” Travelers tend to be a generous lot — always quick to dig into their pockets.

In less than an hour, the two-person emissary has raised the money, connected with the local supplier and is returning to the river with a small nugget of cocaine.

When they arrive with the rock cocaine, Stan Powell, 58, steps forward and volunteers his pipe. He puts the small crystallized rock in one end of the slender, four-inch-long glass tube. A small wad from a Brillo scouring pad holds the rock in place. He lights the pipe and immediately hands it off to another family member. By all rights, he could have taken the first blast — but he didn’t.

Stan (most everybody goes by either their first name or a nickname) is the self-appointed father figure of the group. If he didn’t admit to it, it would be difficult to tell that he’s actually homeless. He wears a baseball cap — no need to flaunt a bald head, he tells people — denim pants, a light blue T-shirt, a blue jacket and brown sport shoes. Tattoos on his forearms fit right in to his overall persona. He’s just a shave away from having the look of a hard-working outdoor man — maybe a construction worker or a truck driver.

And although he’s up to his baseball cap in his own problems, he seems more concerned with the problems of the others.

“Someone’s got to watch over these people,” he said.

By the time the pipe has made its rounds and everyone who indulges has had their quick fix, Stan is left with an empty pipe and a body that is screaming out for its medicine. “That’s OK. I’ll take the push,” he tells them in a sacrificing tone. The push, he explained later, is the smoke residue left inside the pipe after the crack has burned. “I use a wire brush to scrape it loose — there’s usually enough for a small hit.”

On this particular morning, Stan is trying to kill more than just the pain of addiction — he has severe pain in his legs. He’s been having trouble walking. And, for the past few days, he’s been passing blood from his bowels.

“I’m scared,” he said. “I’m really scared. I’m afraid I’m going to die.”

Stan has been homeless for a little more than a year, he said. But he’s been an alcoholic a lot longer. His eyes look into the distance as he tells his story. He was in the Army. His wife had a brain disease and ended up in a mental institution.

Somehow, he ended up having an affair with a 19-year-old woman — the daughter of a colonel at Fort MacArthur. She ended up having their baby, but the baby died. Even though her parents didn’t approve, the couple stayed together, he said.

“Then one day she was riding on the back of my motorcycle — and I was drunk,” he said, still looking off in the distance. “I was drunk and I crashed the motorcycle. I killed her. I killed her. That was December 27th, 1967 at 10:45 p.m. I got even drunker that night and I’ve been drinking ever since.”

It’s haunted him for the past 33 years, he said. Since then, he’s had his share of jobs and wives and children, but he could never remain attached to any of them very long, he said. He spent a couple of years in prison — he doesn’t talk much about it except to curse the booze he says impaired his judgment.

He hit rock bottom last year following a drunken driving arrest and a squabble with one of his actual family members. When it was over, he had no job and no place to stay, he said. The folks at the river took him in — no questions asked. That’s the first rule here.

By mid-morning, most of the family members have migrated to Forrest Park at Sixth and D streets. If the river bank is their bedroom, the park is their living room, dining room and bathroom — at sunrise, city employees unlock and re-stock the public restrooms. The homeless spread some blankets on the damp grass and set up camp for the day.

Some sit quietly, some prefer to sleep and the others talk about matters of consequence — will the code enforcement officer sneak up on them today and cite them for having open containers. Just in case, they keep their cans of beer and other beverages in brown paper bags.

Not far from them a young mother watches her three children screeching and frolicking on the swings — she’s almost certainly unaware some of the homeless people are probably high on alcohol, crack and maybe even heroin.

“We don’t bother anybody here,” said Chris Garcia, 44, with a beer-slurred cadence that seems to exaggerate his mild Mexican-Spanish accent. “We’re not bad people. We just need jobs. Give me a job and I’ll be out of here.” When an outsider suggests that only a fool would give a job to a guy who’s been drinking, Chris quickly responds, “I’ll be sober when I go to work.” The outsider suggests Chris sober up the day before he goes job hunting.

“No way! I need the beer to kill the pain of being homeless,” Chris says. Any further debate is useless. Chris will usually play his trump card and then victoriously pull the plug on the conversation. “Have you ever been homeless? Then don’t judge me until you’ve walked in my shoes.”

Chris is one of the few in the group who doesn’t sleep at the river. He prefers to crash behind a furniture store a few blocks away on Seventh Street. Sometimes he helps clean up the bar next door. It’s a conveniently short commute at closing time.

The men outnumber the women by about 5 to 1. If there’s a maternal counterpart to Stan, it would be 40-year-old Renee Faust. To the others in the family, she’s Little Bit. She was born in Riverside, raised in Needles and then lived up north until she was 20, she said.

“I came to this area 20 years ago when my sister passed away,” she said. “I ended up staying.”

She doesn’t give a lot of details, but she chooses to live by the river even though she has close relatives in Victorville — relatives who have repeatedly asked her to live with them.

“I don’t want to be a burden on my family,” she said. She has long, black hair that glistens after she’s washed it in the river. Her soft, brown eyes seem to say, “Everything’s OK. Just relax.” She drinks King Cobra Malt Liquor out of a can — so do a lot of the others. It’s the cheapest brew in the area. They pick up two cans for a dollar at Leo’s 93-cent Store. And Little Bit rolls cigarettes for anybody who asks. If they offer to pay, she’ll gladly accept a quarter.

Just about everybody in the group smokes, so they’ll buy a pouch of Top Cigarette Tobacco for $1.75. They can roll 36 cigarettes for that price — better than buying a pack of 20 Ideals or Corona’s for $2.

Little Bit’s half brother, Robert Asbury, looks after her — and pretty much anybody else in the family. Everybody’s still talking about the incident a few days earlier. A gangbanger from L.A. was picking on Maestro, a friendly, gentle homeless man with some mental problems, Robert said.

“Old man Chris told him to leave him alone,” Robert said. “I said, ‘The guy’s retarded. You need to leave him alone.’ ” Robert turned to Little Bit for permission to take action, he said.

“I dropped his (butt),” he said. “The cops pulled up and saw him with his jaw cracked and his nose bleeding. The cop asked if there was a problem. We said there wasn’t, so he just drove away.” The gangbanger didn’t come back.

For lunch, five or six of them walk up Sixth Street for a free meal at The Lord’s Table, a service provided by the St. Joan of Arc Catholic Church. When they return, Ron Edwards, 31, is relaxing in the park. He’s a tall redhead with a baseball cap and a friendly smile. Ron’s story is one of a man who went from middle class to homeless within a couple of months.

“I lost my job, so I had no income,” he said. “I couldn’t pay my vehicle registration, so the police impounded my car. With no car, I couldn’t get to work — even if I could find a job. I was on unemployment, but that only lasts so long. Soon, I couldn’t afford a place to live. Then boredom sets in because there’s nothing to do.”

So he drinks beer, he said.

By about 4 p.m. the number of people in the park grows to about 30 — including the dozen or so who have arrived in cars and vans with food they’ve prepared for whoever shows up. A different church group brings food every day of the week. About all the volunteers ask is that the homeless people join hands in a big circle and say a prayer or two.

It’s not a firm rule, however — if it were, they would be leaving a lot of the homeless people with empty stomachs. To substance abusers, food is not high on the needs list — religion is near the bottom.

Bill Stonerock, 41, likes people to call him by his last name. He’s a charter member of the family — even though he hasn’t slept by the river for some time. For 14 years, however, he lived in a domed camping tent not far from where the family currently sleeps.

“I walked away from my wife and kids,” he said. Before long the other people at the river became his replacement family. “These people are my friends. They always will be.”

He said he was able to boost himself out of the bottom lands a couple of years ago. Then, last year, he fell in love, he said, with a wonderful woman, Lisa Stoner. They made plans to get married on Thanksgiving, he said. He moved to Big Bear to prepare a home for them, but then tragedy struck.

“Right before we were going to get married, I got a call that some drunk had run over her and she was dead,” he said. “And if that wasn’t bad enough, I had to read about it in the Daily Press. They wrote that the impact cut her in two. That’s when I lost it.”

Nowadays, Stonerock is a regular at the park — even though he sleeps most nights over at the Green Spot Motel on Eighth and C streets. He cleans rooms, paints and does other odd jobs in trade for the room. He drinks a lot of beer — too much beer, some of his friends tell him. He mixes it with the medicine he takes to prevent seizures. He insists he can’t function without a beer when he wakes up and more beer throughout the day.

He’s at his very best when he takes the children from the Green Spot to Forrest Park for the free church meals every afternoon.

He brings back food for a mentally ill old man and a man with no legs.

Stonerock isn’t admitting it right now, but he’s also starting to get worried about some stomach problems he’s been having. For now, he thinks the beer will deaden the pain.

As the sun begins to set over the roof of the California Route 66 Museum across D Street, the family moves across the Forrest Park parking lot and sits in the grass near the lighted Amtrak loading area.

Some regular visitors show up. A friend has dropped Shorty off in the parking lot. Her real name is Yvette Lopez. The 22-year-old was homeless in the past and still considers the people here her family. She’s about the same size as Little Bit and she almost always wears a baseball cap backwards.” I come here to help these people,” she said. “I give them the little money I have. I remember how they all helped me when I was homeless.”

Mary Nordahl is retired and lives in a city-owned house near Sixth and E streets. When she arrives at the park, she’s likely to sneak up on one of the homeless and give them either a hug or a loving swat on the fanny. Mary is as much a part of the family as any of the others. She watches out for them — they keep an eye on her.

There’s a secret side to this warm, loving family. Many in the group acknowledge that one or two of the others may make occasional connections with heroin dealers — but nobody volunteers that they, themselves, are users. It’s not something they’ll talk about with outsiders.

As midnight approaches, the family members one-by-one or in small groups migrate back down to the Mojave River where their mattresses or bedrolls remain untouched. No, not too many outsiders venture down that way. In any other desert city in the world, such an oasis-making river would be the center of life for much of the population.

In Victorville, however, the river belongs to a most unique family — a homeless family.

He heads off on foot to join the others at Forrest Park.

They’re able to spot him long before he gets close — he rocks back and forth a bit as he walks — almost as if he’s imitating a chimpanzee.

Bad shoes or too much walking or a combination of both did something to Maestro’s feet.

He’s a bit groggy — he was up until nearly 3 a.m. panhandling at the ARCO Mini Mart at Seventh and D streets.

His real name is Mitchell Head, but he addresses everyone else by his own nickname, Maestro. Soon the folks down by the river responded by throwing the name right back at him.

“I'm not that good at remembering names,” he said. “Maestro is easy to remember.”

Just about any night he’ll be at the gas station mini-mart acting as a doorman and, with his tooth-deficient smile, greeting everyone with his most polite and complimentary salutation.

“Good morning, Maestro,” he says to each male customer. “You look particularly handsome this evening.” To the women he says, “Good morning beautiful lady.”

Maestro is the D Street Diplomat, the Convenience Store Concierge. He’s a 49-year-old man with the demeanor of a Boy Scout bent on winning merit badges — but his badges come in the form of coins and dollar bills.

To Maestro, everyone is beautiful or special or regal — at least he tells them that. He cocks his head slightly and produces a smile that starts off big and keeps growing until it's so enormous all of the wrinkles on his weathered face feel compelled to join in and take part. His eyes are big and brown and warm enough to take the chill off of even the most adamant anti-panhandler.

Where Maestro lives, there are no neighbors — no human neighbors, anyway. But, he’s not the least bit lonely. He has nightly conversations with a couple of raccoons bent on climbing in bed with him.

“This one raccoon grabbed my butt, so I took action,” he said. “I yelled ‘No!’ But he said, ‘I smell food.’ About 20 seconds later he opened my curtain and said, ‘Where’s the food?’ ” Maestro said he tried pounding on the plywood to keep the raccoons out.

“Do not come in here when I'm here,” he yelled at them. “I'll put food out for you, but don't come in here!”He speaks ever-so-politely with a most arrogant skunk, he says — and he swears he chats with even smaller creatures.

“If you talk to the ants they'll stand up on their hind legs and brush back their antennae,” he said. “Oh, and I talk to the lizard in the morning.”

Maestro’s abode is more than cleverly constructed. He placed two large branches — small logs, really — parallel to each other and about four feet apart across a small, dry ravine. Then he turned two shopping carts on their sides and tied them on top of the logs. Then he placed a 4- by 8-foot sheet of 3/4-inch plywood on top of the carts to form a makeshift, elevated floor.

Next, he placed two more shopping carts — resting on their push handles with their wheels facing outward — about five feet apart. They form small cages for his feet and his head. He draped a mattress spring over the two carts and covered it with an assortment of waterproof tarps to keep the rain out. Finally, he Mickey-Moused a makeshift mattress out of blankets, pillows and foam rubber remnants upon which he sleeps — usually very well, thank you. The dome-like structure is surrounded by piles of old, dirty clothes and a lot of seemingly functionless junk.

This particular night Maestro got little sleep. It wasn’t because he came in late — it was because the ants had decided to declare war.

“It all started with I tried to clean the place up. I moved something and they didn’t like it,” he said. “The ants said to me, ‘You destroyed our roof, Dude.’

“They crawled along the wood and then up the shopping cart. They told me I had to leave — or else!” he said. “I told them I was ready for a fight. First I tried to burn the log and kill them, but that didn’t work. They split up into platoons and attacked from the rear.” He fought them off all night, he said.

Maestro has been gabbing with — or feuding with — the critters there for more than a year, he said.

“My watchdogs are the frogs and the crickets,” he said. “If someone comes near my place, first the frogs shut up — then the crickets.”

His drug of choice is alcohol — although he admits to doing some rock once in a while. The family members consider him a delight to talk with — especially in the mornings. He’s always happy and always friendly — no matter what time it is.

“After he’s been drinking for a while, he gets louder — and he starts talking crazy nonsense,” Stan said. “But we just shout at him and say, ‘Maestro! Stop talking!’ He always shuts right up.”

It seems as if everyone has their own Maestro story. Stan’s favorite is the time someone gave Maestro a bar of soap and challenged him to use it.

“Instead, he ate it,” Stan said, shaking his head and chuckling. Maestro jumped in to finish the story.

“Soap was coming out of my pores for days,” he said with a grin. “I had bubbles.”

Maestro is what police and social workers call a “5150” — a reference to the California Welfare and Institutions Code section 5150 that allows police to hospitalize anyone for 72 hours of observation if they appear to be mentally incompetent and somehow dangerous to anyone — including themselves. Because of that classification, he receives money from Social Security.

“I get a check for about $780 a month,” said Maestro. “Part is from my work. The rest is because I have a mental disability. I went through a mental breakdown.”

The Victorville sheriff’s deputies know him well. Maestro claims to hold the local record for being arrested — more than 100 times, he claims.

“Sometimes I try to get arrested,” he said. “I don’t mind it, but I hate the TV in jail. I’m almost tempted to bust it.

“One time the Victorville police picked me up but they didn’t take me to jail,” he said. “Instead, they drove the other way and took me way out of town — to Oro Grande or somewhere — and made me get out. So I started pounding on someone’s door and said, ‘Call the police.’ Pretty soon a deputy sheriff came out and drove me back to Victorville. I took him down and showed him my condo.”

When he's had just the right amount of alcohol, he’ll talk about his childhood — how his father was the fastest roofer in history.

In fact, Maestro is quick to demonstrate the complex technique on an imaginary roof. He talks, too, about his teen years in the California Youth Authority camps and how he was stronger and faster than anyone else.

He’s still remarkably strong and fast.

With a few more drinks, he’ll challenge any doubter to an arm wrestling match and then to a bout of Indian wrestling. He always wins.

“I’m fast,” he says as he points his right index finger toward the sky — directly in between his eyes.

Maestro may not be capable of functioning within mainstream society, but he has certainly learned how to function on the fringes.

One of the best examples is the way he figured out how to open a can of food without using a can opener.

He gets down on his knees on a sidewalk and rubs the rim of the can on the ground in small circles — so fast and long that the friction heats up the rim to the point that it pops right off.

He’ll demonstrate it to anyone who asks.

He’ll also explain to anyone willing to listen exactly how a laser beam works and even the theory behind nuclear fission.

And if anyone starts talking religion, he’ll transform himself into an animated evangelist, quote scripture and condemn any non-believers in sight to a fiery hell.

He’s been on the streets in Victorville for most of his adult life. Technically, the word “transient” doesn’t apply to Maestro.

As oxymoronic as it sounds, he could be called Victorville's resident homeless.

In contrast, the homeless people who camp along her banks in Victorville indeed have the opportunity to amount to something. The big question is how.

There are many people reaching out with seemingly logical answers and apparently practical solutions. In the end, however, there still remains a “family” of homeless people here — people who do not seem to be able or willing to leave the nest.

And since there is no single authority or clearinghouse truly empowered to deal with the problem, the well-intentioned rescuers run the risk of undermining each other, butting heads or actually encouraging homelessness.

“A woman at the ARCO station called me over and handed me $20,” said Mitchell Head, known to the other homeless here as Maestro. “Then she said, ‘God bless you.’ Now what was she thinking? She has to know I’m going to spend it all on wine.”

He said the woman apparently made a special trip to give someone the money. He wondered if she was just doing it to feel good, he said.

Steve Dombrowski, 38, goes by the street name Cowboy. Many times he doesn’t even have to ask for help. He was recently sitting on the curb next to the AM/PM MiniMart at Seventh and D streets chatting with a “family” member who had just been released from a 60-day jail term. Cowboy wore no shirt and had on old, ragged pants. They paid no attention to the customers streaming in and out.

“Hey, Brother,” a man said as he passed behind them. He had the look of a hard worker. “How can I help you?”

“Got some change?” Cowboy asked.“Do you one better,” the man said. “What kind of beer do you drink?”

“Whatever’s cold,” Cowboy said. When the man came out, he handed Cowboy a plastic bag with a large bottle of cold brew.

“Come on,” Cowboy said to his friend as he stood up. “Let’s go do some drinking.” They both scurried over to Forrest Park.

When they got there, they had the park to themselves. The city’s code enforcement officer had been making sweeps though there that day trying to catch people like Cowboy with open containers of alcohol.

In the past few months, Stan Powell has received at least six such citations. He carries them in his wallet and displays them to anyone interested in seeing them.

“How am I supposed to get to court to deal with these?” he asks rhetorically. “And if I get there, how am I supposed to pay the fine? We’re guilty. We’re all guilty, but this isn’t the way to solve the problem.”

Mayor Pro Tem Bob Hunter made a visit to Forrest Park in late September to get a first-hand look at the situation. He listened to and spoke with many of the regulars.

“This is ridiculous,” said Chris Garcia. “We’re not hurting anybody here.”

Later Hunter said he met with Mayor Terry Caldwell, Victorville Sheriff’s Capt. Glen Pratt and Larry Huber, president of the Old Town Victorville Property Owners Association.

“I told them I thought it was useless to cite the homeless for code violations,” Hunter said. “If they don’t have the money to pay the fines, then we have to pay to keep them in jail.”

Despite Hunter’s suggestion, the code enforcement officer continues to sweep the park. If he does his job well, he will actually clear the entire park. But it’s only temporary. By 4 p.m. as many as 75 people will converge on the park — many of them are the same people he just chased out.

They come back because it’s feeding time at Forrest Park. Every afternoon a different church or ministry or community group lugs in huge kettles of hot food and big boxes filled with bread, snacks, milk, punch, cookies or ice cream treats. They set up shop on one of the picnic tables and watch the line form.

On Thursdays, the Loving Heart Ministries group hosts the feast.

“I’ve been doing this for three years,” Bell Cummins, 83, of Hesperia, said. People call her Granny or Granny Bell. “I’m the Thursday cook, but everyone has something to share — even if it’s just a smile.”

There’s almost always a prayer circle and a short prayer. Some groups ask the people they feed to sign a sheet of paper before they get their food — only one meal per person — at least until everyone has eaten.

“Look at all the criminals,” Granny says with a sarcastic smile. “But also notice how many families with small children come here.” She points out that they usually feed more people toward the end of the month.

“They use up their food stamps early in the month,” she said. “So if there’s an emergency, they often don’t have the money to buy food.

Meanwhile, one of the other volunteers sees a police car drive slowly through the parking lot.

“Why are they harassing people?” he asked Stan. “We’ve never had a problem here. It’s a family feeling.”

“We’re wrong,” Stan told him. “We had our open containers. There’s no law that says we can’t come here, but we can’t drink.”

A few of the “family” members joined in the prayer — most of them ate the free meal.

The previous Monday, however, was a different story. Monday is the day people from Jesus Christ Disciples of His Righteousness bring in a small truckload of food and a small army of volunteers.

The group’s founder is a 52-year-old man with a shaved head, a sleeveless shirt, tattoos and a gray mustache. Pastor Ken Cowdery looks as if he just rode up on his Harley.

In fact, he did.

The former Hell’s Angels biker moved his outreach activities to the High Desert eight years ago after being involved with motorcycle-related street ministries down the hill. When he talks even one-on-one he’s loud enough and forceful enough to be speaking to a group of a hundred or more.

“I was a drug addict. I was an alcoholic,” he says as if he’s testifying at a Midwest church revival. “The major bitch is people want the homeless out of here — in jail. You’ve got to give them a dream. A homeless shelter doesn’t work. People with prescriptions aren’t allowed there. There’s no drugs allowed.”

His goal, he said, is to create a Dream Center in what was once the Kmart on Seventh Street. It would be open for anyone who needs rehabilitation, he said. He envisions a place where people could live and eat while they build wooden chests to sell — something they can be proud of, he said.

But he says he’s running into roadblocks that make his dream difficult to realize. None of the nearby businesses want homeless people in the area, he said. He also conceded that he still hasn’t been able to find out who owns the empty Kmart building.

He defends the churches’ practice of giving food to the homeless. While critics say he and the others who offer food are attracting the poor and the homeless to the area, Pastor Ken says he is doing the community a favor.

“If you feed them, they won’t steal food,” he said.

But before his volunteers will feed anyone, there must be a prayer circle. And this is where Pastor Ken shines. With a voice that seems like it can carry for a mile and an evangelical style that would rival even the best TV ministers, Pastor Ken belts out his gospel. He stands in the center of a circle of at least 30 people. Ironically, on this day, there is not a single “family” member in the prayer circle. They are all sitting at a picnic table on the other side of the park. They’re laughing and talking.

“Let’s stand in the joy and adoration of Jesus Christ,” he said. “You want me to get excited? I’ll get excited for you!” he shouted at full volume.

When the prayer circle has ended, the volunteers fill large plates of food for the homeless and the poor who have been patiently waiting in line.

Bill Stonerock isn’t one of them. He refuses to eat the food Pastor Ken has brought because he doesn’t believe the preacher is sincere.

“He’s doing it for himself,” Stonerock said. “It took him 45 minutes to talk. Say the blessing and get it over with. If people wanted to be converted, don’t you think they’d go to church?”

Though Stonerock won’t eat the food, he continues to accompany children from the Green Spot Motel so that they can eat at the park.

The truth is that Stonerock doesn’t eat much food anyway. He’s been getting his nutrition from beer for too many years. Lately, he’s been feeling sick.

Ever since he started passing blood, he knows he’ll have to see a doctor. He’ll go to the clinic that week for sure.

The next morning, Stan reaches the same conclusion. He too has been passing blood and he’s also afraid of dying, he said. When he tried to stand up, he couldn’t do it. He eventually stumbled his way to the park and agreed to accept a ride to the Veteran’s Administration Hospital in Loma Linda.

“Why are you here?” the triage nurse asks him.

“I can barely walk. I’m passing blood. My gut hurts. I’m a cocaine and heroin addict and I’ve been having suicidal thoughts,” he said.

After hours of tests, the doctors checked him in — to the psyche ward.Back at the park, Renee Faust,AKA Little Bit, is enjoying a day with her family. Since she won’t live with them, they pile into the car and trek to the park to see her.Her half brother, Robert Asbury isn’t there. He has gone to visit people in Needles.

In the past, Shorty — her real name is Yvette Lopez — would take Renee to her place where she could take a shower and sleep in a bed for the night. But now Shorty has encountered hard times and is, again, a homeless 22-year-old. Instead of being someone empowered to help people, she’s now in need of the very help she was giving just days ago.

There are others who try to help the homeless who spend their days at Forrest Park and their nights on the banks of the Mojave. A mysterious woman will show up at the park — usually on Sundays with boxes and bags of clothes. She doesn’t identify herself. The homeless people don’t ask. They just take the goods and say “Thank you.”

And there’s an older couple that brings groceries and other items. They don’t seem to be part of any church or organized group, family members said.

Not to be overlooked are the retailers in the area who are more than happy to stock and sell the kinds of things these homeless people consume. While some store owners complain that the homeless people scare away business, they have no problem selling cheap cigarettes, rolling tobacco with papers, inexpensive malt liquor, beer, wine and hard liquor to a the very same people.

And there’s another problem. Agencies and organizations can only provide what someone will accept.

Case in point — two days after Stan checked into the Veteran’s Administration Hospital he was back at the river. They put him into group therapy, he said, and wanted him to talk about things he didn’t want to talk about.

“So I walked out the door and hitchhiked back here,” he said.

“We have to have some kind of a program where law enforcement works with the local homeless groups,” Mayor Pro Tem Bob Hunter said. “The people have to want to be helped before we can help them — otherwise, it’s jail time.”

But darn near all the homeless folks at Forrest Park know of him. From time to time they think about him and they almost go to him. They know if they ever really get the courage to plan an escape, Danny Crawford will be there for them at the Green Spot Motel just a few blocks away.

They've heard enough stories about how Danny dishes out some of the toughest tough love imaginable -- so tough many are afraid they might fail if they submit to him. They're right about the tough love.

Even to people who have never met him, he represents a dream. Just knowing he's there gives some people the hope they need -- even though they don't yet have that courage. If something happened to Danny it would be tantamount to someone stealing the rip cord from the parachute you swear you're going to use one day soon.

Finally the good news works its way to the park. He's OK. He didn't have surgery. He's back home with medicine for some irregularities in his heartbeat and with a stern warning from his doctor to give up the cigarettes -- now!

Danny's reputation for helping people dig their way out of the gloom almost has the ring of an urban legend.

After all, there are dozens -- maybe scores of organizations and government agencies in the High Desert that can help homeless people, aren't there?

Indeed there are. There's enough food and enough beds and enough well-funded programs to rescue an army of homeless people. And each of these operations seems to be doing its job well.

But built into every successful program or service there's just about always a prerequisite, a restriction, a rule or some other exception, exemption or barrier that either chases away or scares away a tiny percentage of the needy.

To get food stamps you have to have a job. To get into a homeless shelter you have to be clean and sober. To qualify for some programs you have to have an address.

For a few of them you can't have a criminal record and for other programs you might have to reveal secrets you don't want to share or pray to a god you don't want to worship.

It's that small percentage of people who trickle down to the river and gather as a self-supporting "family."

And while they keep each other's spirits up with oceans of love, they also help each other deaden the pain.

Most of them are open about how they use rivers of alcohol to anesthetize themselves -- some of them admit they rely on small rocks of crack cocaine, heroin and other illegal drugs.

But there's no lengthy application to complete to qualify for Danny's tough love, get-your-life-back-together program. There's no background check and no residency requirement. There are no prayers and no drug testing. And it's free.

Danny simply offers a non-negotiable deal -- he'll put you to work at the Green Spot and provide you with a room and unlimited one-on-one counseling if you'll cut out the drugs and drastically cut down on the drinking.

"If they do drugs, they're gone," he said.

Over the past few years, he and his wife, JoAnn, have reached out to more than a dozen homeless people and most all of them are better off today, he said. It's because he was able to convince them not to indulge, he said.

JoAnn is the official manager at the Green Spot Motel and Danny takes care of the building and the grounds. They both take care of those homeless people willing to work.

"The only way you're going to stop them is get them dried out, get them a job and a roof over their heads, watch them for a while and in a year's time they'll be on their own. But you've got to be with them," he said. It sounds almost too simple, but it works.

Jesse Saldivar, 44, is a prime example. He ended up sleeping alongside the "family" by the river following a messy divorce and a nasty dispute over the custody of his daughter. Then one day about eight months ago he wandered into the Green Spot Motel at Eighth and C streets and started talking with the maintenance man.

"He asked if I'd help them take out an air conditioner," Jesse said. Danny watched him work for a while and then made Jesse an offer that would change his life.

"I did a little bit of work so he put me up in a room," Jesse said.

Danny's gesture would help more than just Jesse. With an actual address and a job, Jesse was able to convince a judge that he was responsible enough to have his daughter stay with him on certain weekends. Today, they're closer than ever, he said.

Jesse's hard work has helped give him the courage to reveal a secret he's kept most of his life -- he cannot read or write.

"I would say, 'Why me?' I used to be embarrassed to say it," he said. "But I wish I would have admitted it a long time ago." Just facing it, he says, is the first step to changing it.

He admits Danny works him hard and keeps an eye on him.

"Once in a while you see him yelling at people," Jesse said, "but he doesn't mean it."

"I feel sorry for them," Danny said. "Every one of them's got a brain."

David Storms, 39, was born in and grew up in South Central Los Angeles. When he first met Danny he was living out of his car. The only other place he'd lived was with his parents or with his girlfriend in Hesperia. When they got in a fight and he left, he had no place to go.

Danny not only gave him work and a place to sleep -- he passed on an important life lesson.

"He taught me and showed me how to live on my own," David said. "I had sold drugs, I had used drugs and I had seen a lot of things. And I was angry and unable to respect anybody -- until I met Danny." Just as he did with Jesse, Danny kept a close eye on David.

Now, for the first time in his life, David said he's reaching out and actually helping younger people at the Green Spot. He says he's giving them the same advice his own father used to give him -- advice he never paid attention to until Danny helped him see things more clearly.

"One of the kids here said to me, 'David, you be kickin' knowledge!' Now can you imagine how good that feels?"

David has built up enough inner strength and courage that he was recently able to make contact with the his ex-girlfriend.

"We met for a couple of hours at Center Street Park and things went well," he said with a confident look in his eyes. "I have to thank Danny for the changes."

But it's Bill Stonerock, 41, who is Danny's biggest admirer and biggest challenge. Stonerock, as he likes to be called, lived by the river for 14 years. The past few years he's been working as a maid and general maintenance man at the Green Spot. Danny saw that he was drinking much too much beer and decided Stonerock had crossed the line.

"I got rid of him about a year ago," Danny said. "Later I had a room that needed painting and I decided I'd let him paint it. I believe in second chances. Everybody deserves a second chance."

Stonerock may have left the river, but he didn't leave the "family' by the river. When he's done with his work at the Green Spot, he's often at Forrest Park chatting with the homeless people there -- people he'll always love, he said.

He also loves taking care of the children who live at the Green Spot. There are no wealthy people there -- almost everyone is either on fixed income or is somehow down and out. Stonerock decided the children weren't getting enough to eat, so he began taking as many of them as he can to Forrest park every afternoon for a hot meal courtesy of the churches that feed people each day.

It's clear a bit of Danny has rubbed off on Stonerock. The guy who, at times, will try to look like the tough guy can just as easily melt. It happened on a recent afternoon when he was sitting at one of the picnic tables at the park and chatting with some friends. He noticed one of the Green Spot kids walking past.

"Hey you!" Stonerock called out. "Didn't you see the Stonerock sitting here?"

Instantly the 5-year-old boy ran toward Stonerock at full speed, went airborne and landed in Stonerock's arms. They hugged. Strangers sitting nearby did a double take when they saw the black child in the arms of the white man. If they looked closely enough, they saw a look of heavenly contentment on the boy's face and they saw Stonerock with his head facing proudly to the sky, his eyes closed, and a blissful, dreamlike smile on his weathered face.

"I love you Stonerock," the youngster said before he scampered to catch up with his mother.

Five minutes later three more children ran up to Stonerock and repeated the same scene. When they left, Stonerock sat quietly -- as if he had just received a transfusion of unconditional and unquestioned love and had to savor it for a few precious moments. Two heavy-duty tears welled up in both his eyes and tried desperately to hold on -- but just as quickly they grew so much they lost their grip. They raced each other down his face, plummeted to the picnic table and splattered like the first few drops of a summer thunder storm in the desert.

"I love them so much," he sniffled. "I just love them. I'd do anything for them. Anything."

He paused for another moment, wiped his face dry with his polo shirt and shook his head slowly. "I just want them to have a nice day."

Lately, Stonerock has had to consider taking better care of himself. A week or so ago he finally went to the doctor to find out why he was bleeding where he shouldn't be bleeding. Even before the tests would come back, the doctors gave him some sobering news.

"The doctor told me I'm already three feet in the grave," Stonerock said when he returned. "I'm scared. I'm really scared."

It was the kind of moment Danny knows how to take advantage of. Within hours he told Stonerock he'd help him again. The deal? If Stonerock signs up for supplemental Social Security payments and cuts down on the beer, Danny will buy him a refrigerator and keep it stocked with the kinds of food the doctors are telling Stonerock he needs to eat if he wants to survive.

Within a couple of days, Stonerock had filled out the papers at Social Security, got his hair cut and bought himself a new shirt and pants. Nobody at the park recognized him.

The results of the test weren't the greatest of news. He'd surely need surgery to stop the non-life-threatening bleeding and they'd have to do something about the growth on the back of he leg.

"It's cancer," Stonerock said. "I'm scared."

With the help of one of the women living at the Green Spot, he's making plans to get a ride down the hill and check into a hospital.

More than ever, Danny knows Stonerock must stop drinking beer completely. "He ain't got no choice," Danny said. "He'll either quit or he'll die -- one of the two."

Over at Forrest Park, there are also changes in the wind. Stan Powell had gone briefly to the Veteran's Administration Hospital in Loma Linda, but left when people started asking too many questions.

When he returned, the "family" welcomed him back. They even remembered his birthday last week.

"These people are beautiful," Stan said. "Little Bit gave me a $2 bill, Mary gave me a dollar and Gina gave $1.50."

However, each day he's feeling worse, he said -- so bad he's been camping out closer to town, across from Mary Nordahl's house near Sixth and E streets.

She's been trying to encourage him to take up the offer to live with his sister in Victorville. "He told me there are family problems," Mary said, "but he thinks things are improving with them."

To her delight, Stan's family showed up for him on Monday. "He got in the car and went with them," Mary said.

If Mary had the money or the wherewithal she'd be another Danny, she said. "My dream is to buy a 20-bedroom house and have all of these people live with me."

It's Mary who allows her homeless "family" members to use her shower and occasionally even sleep over in her tiny city-owned house.

"Some of those ludle-ludle-ludle people (she rapidly moves her tongue in and out to avoid saying a dirty word) ask me why I don't charge them for taking showers at my place," Mary said. "I look them right in the eye and say, 'They're my friends and it's none of your damn business!'"

The numbers of people by the river and at Forrest Park have been fluctuating lately. Renee "Little Bit" Faust had been in jail for eight days, but they released her when none of her accusers showed up at her court hearing. They gave her three years probation for an assortment of citations for having open containers in the park. Her son and daughter-in-law are still begging her to come and live with them, but she says she doesn't want to be a burden.

"I told them that when it starts getting too wet, I'll come and live with them," she said.

Chris Garcia is still in jail. Little Bit said he'll be in for maybe a year. Her half-brother, Robert Asbury, and his wife, Gina, are both out of jail, Little Bit said. Gina had said she was trying to dry out long enough to be able to get into the How House, a detox facility In Palmdale. It requires three days of sobriety. Robert is heading out to Needles to deal with some court matters.

Ron Edwards got out of jail and had returned to the park. But there was some kind of an argument, a couple of "family" members said, and so Ron moved on. Today, the "family" has dwindled down to just a few.

But the man they call "Maestro" is still talking to the ants and the raccoons and the skunks. Even though he's been homeless in the High Desert for 15 years, he seems to be among the strongest and the physically healthiest.

And Chuck Walton, the self-proclaimed "retired bum," is not answering his phone In Barstow. He had hinted that he might go back on the road for a while. He's writing a book about his life as a homeless hobo and needs to do a little bit more hands-on research, he said.

He promised that if he left, he wouldn't be gone long. He has an ultimate dream -- one he cannot fulfill if he's on the road.

"My dream is to have a tombstone when I die," he said. "I don't want to end up like so many others I've seen -- dead by the side of the road."