Victor Hubbard had spent three years standing on the same street corner until Ginger Jones Sprouse, a Texas woman, decided to intervene and learn more about him. She discovered that the man, in his 30s, was homeless and struggling with mental health issues. The heartbreaking reason he stood at that corner was because his mother had dropped him off there, telling him to wait for her return. She never came back.
“He stands and looks, taps the pole, squints, dances, waves, and sometimes just stares,” Sprouse wrote on a 2017 GoFundMe page. “He is a sweet, gentle man who happens to be mentally ill. If you have ever heard the term ‘falling through the cracks,’ he is the definition.” Sprouse passed by Victor’s street corner in Clear Lake, Texas, four times a day on her way to work at the Art of the Meal. Eventually, the two became friends.
“Police, fire, and local city mental health resources know him very well. He has family in the area who declined to help him. It is told his mother dropped him on the corner and told him to wait for her. He believed her. So he waits and waits and waits,” Sprouse continued on the website. She realized that she couldn’t do it alone and needed others to help ease Victor’s struggles. “So we, as a community, are coming together to find him the mental health help he needs. That is priority one. Once we get him stable in that regard, it is my desire to see him in a peaceful home with friends to support him and even a job. If you want to meet someone who is eternally optimistic, positive, and humble, go visit him. He will out-bless you every time,” she added.
As winter approached, Sprouse grew increasingly concerned. “So he and I started talking about maybe how he would feel about sometimes coming to my house to get out of the bad weather, and that’s how we started. It’s been quite the journey,” she told MyBayArea Radio.
The GoFundMe campaign raised over $35,000, and Sprouse also created a Facebook page to provide regular updates on Victor’s life. At that time, she shared that he had been doing well. She managed to get Hubbard into mental health clinics, take him off the streets, and even provide him with a job in her business’s kitchen.
In a January 2017 update, she wrote, “I have good news to report for Victor! He is officially off the street and visiting the corner less every day! We have him in the mental health system, and his medication is being regulated. He is receiving care that will continue long term. He is very thrilled that things are progressing.”
Hubbard expressed his gratitude towards Sprouse. “She came around and she kind of saved me. It’s like grace,” he said on KHOU.com, according to The Independent. Eventually, one of his uncles helped him reconnect with his mother. “I got to talk to her, and I really feel like I accomplished something,” Hubbard told the station.
