Truthfully, my family doesn’t volunteer nearly as much as we should. In December, one of the families in my son’s baseball organization decided to run a small food drive, and I thought it would be good for us to get involved. We decided we would contribute by buying groceries and making a few hygiene kits. As I stood in the store gathering items, my 7-year-old son tugged on my coat and innocently asked “Why are we doing this?”
I thought about it for a beat and answered honestly: “Because someone needs it and we can, and if we needed it, I hope someone would do it for us,” I stated. The part I didn’t say out loud but am also painfully aware of is that we (and most middle class people I know) are about three missed paychecks from being in a similar situation.
According to the National Alliance to End Homelessness in 2025, “more people in the United States were experiencing homelessness compared with any year since 2007 (when data collection began) — a total of 771,480 people.” It is a true crisis in this country and one that has deadly outcomes, especially during this extremely cold winter.
In Texas, a 61-year-old homeless man named James Rouly was found dead in his wheelchair outside a convenience store, wearing only a hospital gown and no shoes, according to People.
“Oh my God, like why didn’t someone have enough compassion?” Patricia Henderson, director of the Port Cities Rescue Mission, told CBS affiliate KFDM. “That is what’s wrong with the world right now. People don’t have compassion for another human being.” She added, “Someone, anyone could have dropped him off. We have shelters open, so things like that [do] not happen here.”
Temperatures were reportedly in the low 20s when Rouly was found outside a dumpster by a passerby.
“I touched him and it appeared he was dead,” Daniel December, the resident who found him, told KBTV. “He had a hospital blanket but no shoes. He appeared to only have a hospital gown and some KFC. He had a drink and it was frozen. I called police right away.”
Rouly’s tragic death came just days after Texas Governor Greg Abbott talked about preserving lives during the weather crisis.
“Whenever we go through any type of disaster, job number one is always protecting lives,” Abbott shared in a release. “Because of the severity of this storm, right now I am making a disaster declaration covering 134 counties across the state of Texas to make sure that every possible resource can be made available to those communities so the state can respond quicker, faster, and better than ever before. We have an outstanding team that is already prepared, already responding, to make sure that, even though we’re going to go through a harsh winter storm, we’re going to make it through this process.”
Just two days following that announcement, the City of Port Arthur, where Rouly was found, issued a “Declaration of Disaster” over the winter storm. That, in turn, prompted shelters such as Port Cities Rescue Mission to open their doors to those in need.
“My thing is that we’re here. We are available,” Henderson told KFDM. “Please don’t let someone stay out in the cold when they could come.”
