The quiet man

HARLINGEN - When Carolina Villarreal gazes out the window into her back yard, she often wonders about the man who lives in a tent on the other side of her fence.

Villarreal has seen the man dwelling there next to a drainage ditch for about a year. Yet she knows nothing about him.

"I've never talked to him," Villarreal said. "I only see him near the canal. He just sits there.

"He never bothers anyone. He doesn't socialize. He keeps to himself."

She never sees him panhandling, so she doesn't know how he gets money for food.

"I've wondered why he lives there. It gets cold; it gets hot. Why doesn't he go somewhere where there's help?" Villarreal said.

The man's little encampment is visible from the southbound frontage road and outer lanes of Expressway 77/83, a few feet beyond Midlane Drive and a Stripes convenience store on the corner.

People who work in the area say he's lived there at least two years; some say three or four years. But he's a mystery.

"How does he get by? I wouldn't be able to tell you that," said Sonia Alvarado, activity director for the Mr. Gatti's restaurant across the street from the convenience store. "I wish I knew ."

The man twice declined to be interviewed. The convenience store clerks also declined to comment.

But Mr. Gatti's workers say they often see him sitting by his tent: a faded blue, domed tent staked next to a drainage ditch that runs south from the expressway. A torn yellow tarp often covers the tent.

Three old wooden Coca-Cola crates stacked on top of each other sometimes serve as a chair. A couple of blue plastic crates stuffed with what appears to be trash and a large gray plastic garbage barrel flank the tent.

Nearby, a thin foam egg carton mattress lies on the grass, a few feet from a dirt road that fronts the ditch.

Motorists along the Expressway 77/83 frontage road say they have seen the tent man propped against a small tree in front of Mr. Gatti's while reading a book.

It appears that the man's only companions are his cats. A worker at the restaurant says it's common to see him with half a dozen cats, or more.

"He has a lot of little cats. Every time I see him, I see him with cats," said Julisa Ortega, a cashier at Mr. Gatti's. "They follow him around, I guess because he feeds them."

Behind the Stripes store is Kids' Playhouse, an early childhood development day care center.

"I see him there with his cats," day care director Diana Gutierrez said. "There's cats around him all the time. I'll see him playing with them, tossing things at them, feeding them."

Everyone says he has never caused any problems in the neighborhood.

"He doesn't bother anyone. I've never seen him ask for food or money," Alvarado, at Mr. Gatti's, said. "He's not hurting anyone. We can't say anything bad about him."

Gutierrez agrees. "I've never heard any complaints about him," she said. "He stays by himself and he's not a loud person."

Gutierrez also has never seen him panhandle. But people in the area have given him food and money.

"I walked by him a few days ago and gave him $5. He didn't ask for it. He just took it and put it in his pocket." Gutierrez said.

"He kind of nodded his head as if to say, ‘Thank, you.'"

She later thought the gift might have been a mistake, that he might ask for more money. But he hasn't, she said.

Villarreal recalls that one of her neighbors once carried him a plate of food on a Christmas Day.

It is not clear who owns the property where the man has staked his tent.

A canal that runs along the western edge of nearby Victor Park is owned by the Harlingen Irrigation District, district general manager Wayne Halbert said. But the ditch, which parallels the west side of the canal and drains expressway property, is owned by the Texas Department of Transportation, said Amy Rodriguez, a TxDOT spokeswoman.

The man's camp is a few feet from the ditch bank. But TxDOT doesn't own that land, Rodriguez said.

If it were a state right-of-way, TxDOT could have him removed, she said. But because it isn't, "we wouldn't have a comment," she said.

Officialsat Harlingen's Loaves & Fishes, the nonprofit organization that feeds, shelters and educates the homeless and needy, say they don't know the man in the tent.

Those who work with the homeless know of people who choose not to go to shelters and instead avail themselves of only minimal assistance from programs geared toward the homeless.

They also know of others who don't seek help at all.

"I think it's their decision that they don't want to be restricted in any way," said Minnie Contreras, director of the Vera Naumann Family Emergency Assistance program at Loaves and Fishes. "They want to be free to do what they want and independent, but of course they're paying a big price for that."

Longtime workers at Loaves & Fishes say each person has a different story.

They may or may not see their clients again at the shelter, and may or may not see those people make it out of homelessness, workers said.

"Everyone is here for very different reasons," Contreras said. "Right away, you can spot those that are going to stop and stay."

About 23 percent of the homeless population in South Texas are considered to be "chronically homeless," said Dean Hall, Loaves & Fishes executive director.

"These are people who for whatever reason are sleeping on the streets," Hall said.

Like Villarreal, Gutierrez is amazed that the man in the tent can survive living there by a ditch bank.

"I wonder how he's managed to sleep there, to live there in that little tent all this time," Gutierrez said.