Homeless find temporary shelter in San Carlos Park

The air was a bit chilly — definitely not Chicago chilly, but cool for South Lee County. The sun had set an hour before and the darkness was almost heavy with moisture hanging in the air. It hazed the view through the pools of light spilt by the street lamps, traffic signals and store signs.

It was the moisture that worried Jessie Palmer. He looked up from his crouched position in front of the Circle K store at U.S. 41 and Sanibel Boulevard, his eyes searching the dark skies while rough stained fingers gripped the slightly mangled cigarette he lifted to his lips.

Photo by Jessica Waters, Banner

Jessie Palmer has been homeless for more than five years, spending most of his time on the road, hitchhiking from town to town. "This place is no better or worse than any other," he said of San Carlos Park, "but no place is welcoming enough to stay at yet."

"I don't want the rain that's for sure," he said quietly. With a glance down — cigarette dangling from between narrow lips, a quick strike of flimsy match against the back of the book — he lifted the match to the cigarette and the smell of burning tobacco hung in the heavy air.

" I can deal with cold, no problem," he said, "but someone stole my coat and I get sick every time I sleep in the rain."

Palmer is from North Carolina, but he doesn't remember exactly where. On the road for more than five years now, Palmer said he doesn't know where he is going either.

"Just have to keep moving," he said as he settled back more comfortably on the tight rolled sleeping bag that was wrapped around every possession he owned. He said Florida was nice but that it was impossible to find a job for a few days to help the empty pockets or the empty stomach.

Palmer ended up in Estero after hitching a ride from Miami with a pickup truck full of 12 migrant workers, he said.

"The were looking for work," he sad, "but I just want to find my next ride."

Across the road, hunched against the Publix sign, Darlene Nelson waited, watching her younger half-sister Carmella Birchul. Birchul paced back and forth along the short stretch of sidewalk, careful to keep the sign facing the traffic coming from the grocery store.

"Pregnant. Please help. God Bless."

People react better to Carmella, Nelson said, adding that people usually felt sorry for the young girl because her six-month pregnancy was a tug on people's guilt.

"I stand out there and they don't have to care about some 40-year-old woman," Nelson said.

Unlike Palmer, Nelson and Birchul know where they came from, and they know exactly where they are going.

"Back to South Carolina and nothing is stopping us," said Birchul explaining that they had family waiting there in South Carolina.

Both born in Fort Myers to the same mother, the two never had a chance to form the bond of sisterhood. Birchul was placed with her grandmother in Kentucky and grew up there.

Photo by Jessica Waters, Banner

Carmella Birchul, six months pregnant, and her half-sister, Darlene Nelson, are living on the streets in Fort Myers and San Carlos Park, trying to gather the money to buy a bus ticket back to their home in South Carolina.

Hearing through family that she had a sister in Fort Myers, Birchul and her boyfriend picked up and moved to Lee County. Renting a small studio apartment, Birchul and Nelson connected and a bond quickly formed.

"It didn't take long at all," said Nelson. "It was a natural thing, she was my sister and that's all there was too it."

The sisters moved in with Nelson's brother and his family, and it seemed like life would fall into a regular pattern of normalcy, said Nelson. That was until her brother told them he was moving his family to South Carolina. And that was until Birhurl realized her recent weight gain wasn't from hamburgers. She was pregnant.

"I didn't know what to think except that she was my sister and we were going to stick together," said Nelson. Birchul's boyfriend — the father of the child — decided on a different reaction and walked away, leaving the pair to travel with Nelson's brother to a new home in South Carolina.

But fate wasn't done with its tricks, according to Birchul. Somewhere along the trip, the small coin purse they kept their identification in disappeared.

"We tried to make do once we got there without the (ID) cards," said Nelson, "but everything requires some sort of proof these days."

Assistance from a local church provided bus tickets back to Fort Myers, where the two were able to get duplicate copies of their identification. But that was two weeks ago, and the pair has managed to gather $32.75 toward the $137 tickets back to home and family in South Carolina.

"It's hard because you get a little money and then you need food or need cough medicine and you have to decide what is more important," said Birchul.

For a week, the two worked the intersections in North Fort Myers, spending the nights in a park on Palm Beach Boulevard. But constant harassment from the police drove them away said Nelson.

"They would chase you off if they saw you trying to sleep anywhere near a building," she said.

So far, officials in San Carlos Park have not bothered them, but they say people are not as generous here.

Linda Pankow, Director of United Way's 211 program, said that the first step for homeless in South Lee County should always be to call 211.

"We will do an assessment and work to get them into a shelter," she said. "That is how you start to become a part of the community again and start over."

Pankow said that finding help to leave the area was more unusual than homeless individuals seeking to start over here, and that help may be more difficult to find.

"But the only way to know for sure is to work with us," she said.

"We'll do what it takes to get back home," said Nelson. "This isn't how I saw my life 15 years ago," she added as they watched the sky and looked for a building overhang to sleep under in case the rains came. "But I just trust in my faith and know we will make it through this."