For a homeless veteran in Fayetteville, America has changed

December 31, 2010
By Michael Futch
Staff writer



Mitchell Shird blames America for the gloomy mess his life is in.

He holds the nation accountable for the inferior education he received in South Carolina, putting him behind his white classmates in the early days of public school integration. He points the finger at Uncle Sam, too, for a lack of good-paying construction jobs. He says the work has been largely farmed out to the vast numbers of illegal immigrants allowed to stay here and pursue the American dream.

At 49, he's homeless.

The dreams he once had are over.

"This is a sad day for us," Shird said. "We didn't ask for it, but we got it. I want to go back to the America I had. Where a man can go out and make money."

Still, the homeless veteran doesn't want people to pity him.

He doesn't come off as bitter during interviews at the Salvation Army dining hall and inside his temporary place of shelter, not far from downtown Fayetteville.

He has labored all his life, primarily as a brick mason.

He once envisioned his retirement by the time he reached 50. Now, he said, he doesn't have enough change to jingle in his pockets.

"At one time, America was about life," Shird said from a corner bedroom of the vacant house where he sleeps at night. "But now that America is about money, there's not enough for everyone. Being homeless doesn't mean I'm not happy. I'm content. God has given me enough, and this is not my home."

Instead, the abandoned building provides shelter from the cold.

On this Monday night, he's wearing three coats, three pairs of pants and a do-rag to cover his balding head in the 16-by-20 foot room. A drop cord, attached to an outside utility pole, allows him to run a small electric heater. A table saw and a broken television set share space in the room with a small radio, toaster and microwave. Up against a cracked plaster wall is a small bed, upon which are strewn a dictionary, a commentary on Revelations and "The New Strong's Expanded Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible."

Not only does Shird build things with bricks, he's interested in rebuilding souls through his ministry. He speaks of starting an evangelical movement in Fayetteville.

This self-described pastor of the House of God Universal Ministries points out that Jesus was homeless. For more earthly nourishment, he goes to the Salvation Army and other places around town where the homeless are fed.

"When I grew up, I could see the chickens through the cracks in the floor and the stars through the ceiling at night," he said. "Yes, I've had new cars and a house. I've had those things. That was the good days in America. I'm going to live. I might not have a cell phone or a Cadillac."

Sue Byrd, who serves as the director of Fayetteville Area Operation Inasmuch, said Shird is no different than many of the hundreds of homeless who roam the streets of the city.

"It's life. It's the economy that we live in as far as jobs go," she said. "I had been hopeful that with so much construction going on in the city and Fort Bragg that vets would be hired. But we're not seeing it. They should have the first option.

"He's really typical of a lot of veterans we see. It's not an unusual story. And, mostly, there's no work."

Shird said a voice and a vision came to him after he turned 26, and that's when he decided to accept God as his savior. It was Dec. 4, 1987, and on the heels of a five-year cocaine habit in which he was burning through $1,700 a week on drugs.

These days, he studies the Bible nightly. He compiles spiral notebooks of his writings and inspirations.

"This is given to me by God," Shird said, as he read aloud from one of these spiritual journals under the intense glare of a work light. "I just write it. You have to obey God."

One hand-written entry, scrawled into a damp reference calendar, reads: "With the Lord in front, don't worry about what's behind."

Another one, dated March 14 reads: "You don't have to cross this finishing line to win the biggest prize; but you do have to cross to win. The prize is not given to the swift or to the strong, but to the one who endures until the end. Run therefore so you may obtain."

Born to sharecroppers, Shird grew up on a farm in rural Florence County, S.C. His father, Obadiah, died of a heart attack at 39, eight months into his wife's pregnancy with Mitchell.

By the age of 4, he was working in the cotton fields to help support the family. In those days in the South, he said, "When Mama went to work, you went to work."

From 1987 to about 1995, Shird ran his own brick masonry business in Pamplico, S.C. At the peak of the operation, he said, Miracle Masonry employed a staff of 17 and was bringing in $6,000 to $10,000 a week before payroll.

After graduating from high school in 1979, he worked for a couple of years in the mills around Florence. Then, he joined the Air Force and became an aircraft specialist stationed at Bitburg Air Base in West Germany.

"After the Air Force," he recalled, "I started laying brick. I engineer brick. I can brick anything."

For more than a quarter century now, he has worked in construction. But most of those jobs began to dry up for him, he said, as more Hispanics secured work from the labor pool. It's an issue that gnaws at the spiritual-minded Shird.

"Those are hard-working people. They'll work from sunup to sundown," he said. "I have nothing against their craftsmanship. But, (in many cases) they're illegals. This is it. This is where it is. This is America."

To survive, he has taken on jobs away from his Florence County roots. Jacquelene, his wife of 20 years, remains behind. They are not together, he said, because of their finances.

"If she came here to be with me," he said, half his face shrouded in darkness, "Fayetteville would have two homeless people."

He moves from place to place for jobs in the southeastern part of the country. He asks that his employer provide him with a place to stay and his meals. In return, Shird said he promises to work at half the cost of what he would normally charge.

When he moved to Fayetteville in May, Shird helped reface the House of God Church on Southern Avenue. He is now renovating the old house where he stays and where he writes daily on what he calls "the rudiments of the world."

"I've gone from $10,000 a week to four jobs a year," he said.

"Where is America?" he is prone to asking. "This is not the America I grew up in. America changed; I didn't change."

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