Helping the homeless on Indian Creek

By Eric Smith

As the flood water rushed around her sweeping everything away in front of its path, Rachel Hood-Engle briefly had to come to grips with the most terrible of questions.

Is this it? Death?

Clinging to a tree branch in the torrent while simultaneously maintaining a suitcase containing the last of her possessions; a family bible, photos of loved-ones, mementos. Nothing of tremendous monetary value but incalculable personal provenance.

Having narrowly escaped, Hood-Engle uses one word to describe her perspective on flooding.

“It’s intimidating,” she said.

Hood-Engle and her husband, Jered Engle, have stayed in the same area along Indian Creek for just over a year. They thought it would be easier to live out of sight, holding signs to make what little money they could for themselves.

Were it not hard enough to be fighting mother nature’s fury, their day-to-day struggle is every bit as daunting; if not by its volume, then by its consistency. The Engles aren’t just holding fast against the weight of rushing water, but the constricting grasp of economic tightness, civil uncertainty and the razor-like words birthed from ignorance.

There are those, though, who more than feel a fleeting compassionate flicker, instead follow through on those feelings with tangible action.

Patrick Gasper is just such a soul. A native of New Orleans, Gasper’s life was also washed away when Hurricane Katrina devastated the city 20 years ago. He too, has seen and felt what it’s like to witness the totality of one’s life turned to floating refuse, never to be recovered.

Having seen what water can do to destroy, Gasper is now using water to help lift up those in need. In 2019, he founded his organization, Provide Clean Water, with the mission of getting healthy, sanitary water to communities that need it.

Gasper sacrifices his wants and needs to instead bring hope and help to those whose tanks are nearly exhausted.

“It’s not cheap, I don’t have government assistance,” Gasper said. “I’m out of pocket with everything I do. I’m not selfish. And in order to do something, you want it done right, you do it yourself.”

Following this mission has taken Gasper all over the country. Provide Clean Water has made stops from Houston to Los Angeles and even to the sparse, beautiful, unforgiving open-ness of the Navajo Nation, where he tended to the needs of the residents there during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Provide Clean Water is still a small organization. While Gasper has managed to do more and cover more territory than would seem possible, there’s still much to do. Gasper’s organization, when held in scale to the enormity of the numerous risks faced by the homeless, it feels like trying to fill the Atlantic Ocean with naught but a garden hose.

Such a preposterous task seems impossible. Unless, of course, you gathered more people with more hoses.

Helen Graham, who helps the Engle’s along with other members of the homeless population, is another member of the community doing what she can with what she has.

In her spare time, Graham donates her time to the Unity Southeast food pantry as well as teaming up with Gasper in making water available to those in need, especially in the sweltering heat.

Graham uniquely understands the arduousness of these circumstances. Once homeless herself, donating her time and being kind are two things she always has enough to give back.

“I always wanted to give back because I know how it made me feel (to receive),” Graham said,

Something as simple as addressing someone by their name carries a tremendous significance. So too does the simple act of receiving a soda from a stranger.

“I was at (QuikTrip)…I was having a rough, rough, rough day,” Jered Engle said. “Something as simple as somebody buying me a fountain pop–that made the whole rest of my day.”

With all of the threats and obstacles that make ascending from homelessness, Hood-Engle said she thinks a little kindness goes a long way.

“There’s too much hate in the world,” Hood-Engle said. “We need more kindness towards each other.”