EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the third installment of the Neosho Crosslines series by the Neosho Daily News. The person who was interviewed asked that he only go by Jim.
One day, Jim was sleeping in his car in the parking lot of St. John’s Hospital in Aurora.
That soon would all change.
“I was in need of a place to stay. I was homeless. I was sleeping in my car at the time. Things had not went so well for me and I was in a real bad position,” Jim said. “I was staying at the Aurora hospital parking lot, and the pastor of the hospital came in and asked me what I was doing. I said, ‘well I am sleeping out here’ and he asked, ‘when was the last time that you ate?’ I said ‘yesterday’ and he said, ‘come on in.’”
The pastor took Jim inside the hospital and fed him a warm meal.
Jim noted that he was not always sleeping in his car, actually far from it.
“I was married, successful, had the house and the wife and all of that good stuff, things just started going down hill,” he said. “My wife did not stick it out during the hard times, and I ended up hitting rock bottom pretty much.”
Jim worked as a service manager at a Chrysler dealership in California.
When he moved to Southwest Missouri, he was doing factory jobs and then worked in maintenance for a railroad contractor. He had been living in Aurora for several years.
As the pastor talked to Jim, he started getting busy on finding a place for Jim to stay.
The pastor started calling around to shelters, and within 24 hours Jim found himself at the Neosho Crosslines Guesthouse. Jim came to Crosslines in February of this year.
“I got everything that I needed as far as housing, toiletries, toothbrush, shampoo, everything I needed they supplied me with them,” Jim said. “They supplied me with a nice warm bunk and three meals a day.”
Jim stayed at the guesthouse for approximately two months. Then, he started doing staff work and a position came open, so Jim was hired on as part of the staff.
He is now considered one of three co-managers of the house. He stays in the guesthouse.
“(My duties are) making sure that things are running smooth, making sure people are getting fed, the house is running as a whole, checking people in, doing background checks on people and doing some paperwork,” Jim said.
Asked what advice he would give others who need a place like the guesthouse to stay, Jim stated, “we offer a good foundation, good place to stay and a good safe place. You can go out and look for work, you can start over again here in a place like this. We have some success stories.”
