Sandusky Register
07.19.2010

Out of the woods: 'Dumpster Don' gets his own apartment

By Jason Singer

SANDUSKY

The late afternoon sunshine beams through the screen windows and shadows of nearby trees dance upon the off-white walls.
The light also illuminates Don Dezanett’s pale legs, where scars from oft-scratched mosquito bites mar his skin.
He sits on a beige couch that sports a faded 1970s red floral pattern.
“It definitely beats the woods,” Don says of his new apartment. “At least there aren’t any mosquitoes. Those things’ll eat you alive.”
After spending the past nine years in the woods, the man known as “Dumpster Don” has a place to call home.
For the last five of those years, he lived in thickets of trees along Sandusky’s west-side railroad tracks. He slept in leaky tents and a tiny plywood shanty.
Earlier this year, Don began receiving disability payments. He suffers from inflammatory arthritis and many untreated injuries.
Combining the disability money with Volunteers of American Northwest Ohio’s direct housing program, Don saved enough to leave the woods.
As part of that housing program, Volunteers of America — a nonprofit organization that runs Crossroads Homeless Shelter in Sandusky — will pay half of Don’s rent for three months.
So here he sits, in an apartment of his own.
On a stiflingly hot summer day, a ceiling fan whirs overhead. Don smokes a cheap, skinny, cherry-tipped cigar. His white hair, stained with streaks of yellow, shines in the low sunlight.
Don extinguishes his cigar in a coffee mug and takes a swig of apple-cherry juice from its plastic carton. He wipes his mouth with a sunburnt wrist.
“I really appreciate everything everyone’s done for me,” Don says. “Sondra (Anderson of Crossroads Homeless Shelter) brought me a whole set of silverware earlier. I couldn’t believe it. Before, I only had four spoons.”

A little help from friends
A few days earlier, Anderson sits in her office at the shelter on Superior Street.
She talks about the direct housing program, and the many people who will contribute to Don’s new apartment.
Her staff has an extra couch, television, plates, lamps, side tables and other amenities Don can use, she says.
The Mylander Foundation is providing him with a “move-out bucket,” which includes a mop, cleaning supplies and laundry detergent.
W-T Realty, who will rent Don his apartment, bought him a house-warming gift of pots and pans. 21st Century provided Crossroads the money for gas and the manpower to move Don.
Anderson hopes the help will increase the chances that Don’s move is permanent.
“He’ll actually start with almost everything he needs to get going,” she says. “He should be able to maintain that housing for a long time.”
The subsidized apartment, located near the Milan Road overpass, will cost Don about one-third of his disability money. That price includes all his utilities.
At W-T Realty’s office downtown, Don appears giddy at the thought of getting out of the woods. He sits with Kim, who works at Crossroads, and rattles off a few jokes.
“Are you excited?” Kim asks.
“What do you think?” Don responds, before breaking into a laugh.
Bobby Sue, his realtor, shows Don forms about not disturbing his neighbors or breaking the law. Don scribbles his initials and name onto the paper with a skinny blue pen.
“There’s no backing out of it now,” Bobby Sue says with a grin. She’s a friendly woman with shoulder-length brown hair and a blue button-up shirt. “You’re stuck.”
Don laughs. “I think I can handle it,” he says.

Housekeeping
The apartment isn’t perfect. The off-white walls are bare. There’s no air conditioning. Anderson will bring over another fan in the next few days, Don says.
His mattress lies lopsided on a broken bed frame.
Don slept on the floor his first few nights, he says, and may continue doing so until he can afford a new frame.
Still, he says, it’s a step up from the woods.
“The ground there was hard and lopsided,” he quips. “At least the floor isn’t lopsided.”
Don hopes to get a table on which to do puzzles and eat. He also wants some pictures to hang on the walls. He will get cable no later than this week.
It appears he’s lost a lot of weight since last year, but he hopes to regain it.
“A lot of times in the winter, it was so cold, I didn’t want to go out (from my tent) and walk to go get something to eat,” he says. “I don’t plan on going back to the woods.”