It's a perfect match.
A Hollywood casting director couldn't script a better fit for the role George Lively plays in uplifting down-and-outers.
Tattoos. Scraggly beard. Earring. That's not an act, just part of his colorful persona. (A coat and tie wouldn't cut it in this work, and he wouldn't dress like that anyway.)
His official title with the Prestera Center is homeless outreach and engagement specialist. Simply put, he hunts for the homeless (outreach) and tries to help them (engagement).
He blends with them. He talks their talk. He earns their trust, most of them. They sense the empathy. This glib, enthusiastic hippie really cares.
The interaction inspires him. Hope keeps him going. Despite the frustrations and low pay, he perseveres, because he knows he's making a difference.
As a teenager, he wanted to be a chef and worked diligently on his dream. Then he thought about law. During an internship as a juvenile probation officer, social work stole his heart.
He started out investigating child abuse cases for the DHHR. For 19 years, working through the Prestera Center, he trained kids with learning abnormalities. He loved it.
Now, he deals daily with the woes of the homeless, imploring them to take advantage of resources available to help them.
A self-described activist, he's particularly outspoken about the need to decriminalize and revamp the country's drug policy.
And oh, yes, he's a multi-instrument musician.
Newly 50, he dreams of retiring to the family coffee farm in Costa Rica. See, there's nothing ordinary about him, not even plans for retirement.
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"I was born in San Francisco to a pretty strict Catholic family. My dad was a Marine and a patrol officer while he worked his way through law school.
"In 1974, we inherited a house in McLean, Virginia, where my mother grew up. My parents met at Wheeling College. That's our West Virginia connection.
"We moved to McLean, and Dad went to work for the federal government and retired from the Department of Justice. Mom, even with her multiple sclerosis, got a master's in accounting and became a CPA.
"I started washing dishes at the Knights of Columbus when I was 13. The prep cook didn't show up, and the chef asked if I wanted to slice and dice, so I helped out in the kitchen.
"When I was about 14, I decided I wanted to be a chef. I went to five high schools in three years and never got out of ninth grade. I started cooking professionally when I was 15. I went to culinary school briefly in Washington and learned a lot on the job as an apprentice.
"All through college, I worked in restaurants up and down the east coast doing every job in the house - dishwasher, cook, chef, manager, waiter, bartender.
"I got a GED and went to Fairmont State when I was 24. I did two years at Fairmont State to get my grades up. I studied sociology. At WVU, I added anthropology. I was thinking of law school to find some way to end the war on drugs and come up with more rational drug policy for our country.
"I've been an activist for social justice and drug policy reform since the early '80s. I went to a lot of Grateful Dead shows. I will just leave it at that. But it wasn't so much from personal use as just watching friends, as using crack turned into addiction and life-destructive behaviors.
"I graduated in '95. I didn't want to go to school anymore. Instead of law school, I moved down here and started in Child Protective Services in 1996.
"I had interned as a juvenile probation officer in Morgantown in Circuit Judge Larry Starcher's court. We would have coffee every morning and talk about drug policy and juvenile delinquency and kids and things we could do to help them. That got me interested.
"I tried to get on here in juvenile probation, but I was a longhair and a little leftist, and I think that scared the chief juvenile probation officer.
"So I went to the DHHR and got a job as a Child Protective Services worker doing child neglect and abuse investigations. My first job out of college, and it was pretty intense.
"I enjoyed it. But after almost three years, I was feeling a little psychically weary just from all the stuff you see.
"I wanted to try something different, maybe restorative services. So I came here to the Prestera Center when it was Shawnee Hills and worked with mentally ill and behavior disordered children.
"When Shawnee Hills went bankrupt in 2002, I switched gears and went to the Intellectual Developmental Disabilities Title IX Waiver as a therapeutic consultant and behaviorist. It serves children and families with any intellectual developmental disability - cerebral palsy, autism spectrum, Down Syndrome, mental retardation.
"What I really liked about the autism therapeutic work is that I got to learn how this kid learns and teach his caregiver how to reach him in the way he learns. They process information in a different way and every one of them is totally unique.
"I'd learn how they learn, develop a plan, train the caregiver. I did that for 19 years. It was awesome. I miss my kids sometimes. It was neat because everybody can learn. It might take six months or two years, but they are going to learn.
"In social work, you can't not get frustrated. It's all about second, third, fourth and fifth chances. Abuse and addiction, homelessness, domestic violence, crime, all that stuff doesn't just go 9 to 5. It's constantly evolving, and we are constantly learning new ways to solve problems. We hold hands, provide support and open doors of opportunity. We don't make anybody do anything.
"Now I'm working mostly with adults, and they are set in their ways. A guy who has been homeless for 20 years, drinking day in and day out, it is almost culture shock to get an apartment. He doesn't know what to do with himself.
"To get them sober and through rehab sometimes takes several tries. That is frustrating. They are going to do what they are going to do, but if I can help them make a better choice, then I have done my job.
"On Nov. 30, I started as a homeless outreach and engagement specialist. My job is to literally go find homeless people and offer them help. 'Hey, buddy, do you need anything? Personal hygiene kit? Food? A place to sleep? A doctor or mental health help? Substance abuse help? Housing help? How can I help you resolve the issue of you being homeless?'
"Eighty percent have substance abuse or mental health issues. Others are homeless out of circumstance. Some of them are heartbreakingly, gut-wrenchingly horrific. Others are, 'Oh, brother, that could be me.' Two or three mortgage payments missed, foreclosure, a loss of a job, a major health issue, a death in the family, anything. Next thing you know, you are living in the back of your car.
"I love the work. The pay isn't as good as what I made before, but money isn't why we do social work. As long as there is food in the fridge and dog food, who cares?
"I get to help people every single day. They may not always do the right thing, but I point them in the right direction. When they actually do the right thing, it is very rewarding. Social work is intrinsically rewarding not financially rewarding endeavor.
"There are homeless people I haven't found yet because they are living in an abandoned house in a coal camp in Boone or Lincoln or Logan. Most of the time, it's the homeless guys you see on the streets in Charleston, the ones people are afraid of, panhandlers, kind of dirty and scruffy asking you for a quarter.
"Sometimes people confuse me with my clients. I don't care. Don't judge a book by its cover. I know I look like a biker, but I'm a social worker. I'm a good guy. I'm a helper. I'm covered with tattoos and I ride motorcycles, but I don't scare these guys. They see me at the soup kitchens and on the streets and in the camps. I can sit down and have a cigarette and a cup of coffee with them and chit-chat. I talk to the guys on the street like I talk to the governor. Every human being deserves love, respect and dignity.
"I'm a social worker, community mental health professional, educator activist and lifelong learner. It's easy to get jaded. There's a lot of burnout and a lot of people stay and don't care. But I like helping people. I'm a people guy. I love to teach and educate. Social work is really teaching people how to live better and healthier and happier.
"My car is my office. I bought a little Volkswagen hatchback last December, and I already put 5,000 miles on it. I drive the whole county. I've got my laptop in there, and my iPhone, my forms and files, my assessment tools, hygiene packs. During the cold months, I may carry hats and socks and gloves. Cabela's was very nice to me this year. They donated a lot of cold-weather gear.
"There are a lot of faith-based organizations. Manna Meal, St. John's, St. Mark's, Covenant House, Crossroads. They come through more than any private or governmental agency. Mental health centers do their stuff, but as far as the day-to-day life of the homeless person, they rely on the faith-based community.
"I am most proud of my work serving and protecting children and families. Up to this day, I'm working for the YWCA, teaching a domestic violence batterers class the judge orders people into. I teach them anger control and conflict resolution and stuff like that.
"For several years, I taught ATV safety with the ATV Safety Institute in California. I started a tiny company called West Virginia ATV and Off Road Safety and trained like 4,600 kids in the valley for free. The schools would never pay for it. I would put my ATV on the stage and had an hour-long ATV safety course.
"I'm still involved in drug policy reform. Our war on drugs is a colossal failure. It causes more harm than good, just like the prohibition of alcohol. We have to find a way to alleviate people's need to self-medicate with these drugs.
"Prohibition creates the criminal problem. The drug problem is not a legal problem. It's a medical, social and mental health problem and should be addressed by those professionals, not law enforcement or the criminal justice system.
"Sixty percent of our federal prisoners are nonviolent drug offenders. If they gave that money to education, health and community mental health, sick people who are drug addicts would get the treatment they need, and prisons would be filled with dangerous bad guys who need to be there.
"I play lap dulcimer, guitar, six-string banjo and a little bass. I have a couple of buddies, and we try to play music weekly. We play a couple of clubs, but mostly it's just guys' night out to play music, a social club.
"I just turned 50. I'd like to start my coffee company back up. My brothers and my family and I own a coffee farm in Costa Rica. In 2006, we set about building a coffee company. We were getting ready to launch our first 30,000 pounds in the States and my partner dropped dead, heart attack. He hadn't changed his will, so I lost my shirt.
"But I still have those labels and still grow 30,000 pounds of coffee a year and still have the coffee farm. So that's the retirement package for my siblings and me. I will work another 10 or 15 years in social work, then retire to Costa Rica and live la pura vida."
Reach Sandy Wells at sandyw@wvgazette.com or 304-342-5027.