Back from the Brink: Never Give Up Hope for Recovery

by Josie Raymond · 2010-04-12 13:36:00 UTC
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It's not often that stories of recovery are documented so well and publicized so widely as that of J.D. Glass, the formerly homeless man in northern Virginia who has been the subject of an unofficial three-part series in the Washington Post.

He first appeared in the paper just last June when two reporters focused on the recession stumbled across his homeless camp. Glass was sitting on a mattress wearing a sweatshirt, a watch and nothing else. When the reporter kneeled down to talk to Glass, his knee landed in human waste. Glass had been living outside for 37 years. Alcoholism had ruined his liver and he had recently given away his dog, Bob. He described himself as "just a dumbass in the woods living in a tent."

Weeks later, sensing that he was near death, Glass got in touch with the Hilda M. Barg Homeless Prevention Center and spent time there and, after a seizure, in a nursing home. Doctors gave him 36 hours to live. But he survived and by the time those same reporters caught up with him last October, he was healthier, unrecognizable, and had been in touch with siblings he had last seen as a child at an orphanage in Texas. Really, you have to see the before and after photos.

Practically witnessing a man who had reached rock bottom pull himself up toward self-sufficiency is inspiring enough, but just today the Washington Post featured Glass again. Just 10 months after he was found half-naked outdoors, he was dressed in a button-up shirt and a bolo tie, carrying a briefcase and preparing to address the Prince William County Board of Supervisors about the need for increased funding for homeless services. Glass collects Social Security and has a basement apartment that, he said, "beats the hell out of a tent."

Photo credit: DRB62

Josie Raymond is a Change.org editor who has reported from the streets of the South Bronx, written for several magazines that folded (not her fault) and fixed thousands of typos.
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