Resilience in a Broken System
Larry Pugh could be earning over 60,000 dollars each year as a trained independent network technician, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But after totaling his car in December of 2018, Pugh has no way to get to work. Now, his only income is from Mount Pleasant, Michigan’s Bio Life, making 100 dollars each week donating plasma.
Pugh isn’t legally allowed to earn money donating plasma. In order to donate at Bio Life, a donor needs to list a permanent address, so Pugh lists one of his friend’s addresses in order to earn money.
Pugh has such a limited income that he is now homeless and finds shelter with the Isabella County Restoration House rotating shelter. Each week, a different church in the area allows people who are homeless to stay the night and offers each person a hot dinner.
The rotating shelter is open from the end of October through April each winter. This past the summer when the shelter wasn’t open, Pugh was staying in his storage unit.
“I pay 50 dollars a month to keep my things here,” Pugh said. “I was living here for about 2 months before I got caught and (the owners of the storage units) threatened to call the police.”
After leaving the storage unit, Pugh found shelter in a hammock in the woods. He stayed in the woods until the shelter opened up again this past October.
Homelessness can make a person lonely, especially for Pugh, a 59 year old man who has never been married and has no children. He manages to make friends in the shelter though, and is close with Mary McMillan.
“There were rumors around the shelter that we were an item. But Mary and I are just friends,” Pugh said. “She’s new to the shelter and was really a fish out of water. I’m just trying to help her out and be there for her.”
Pugh is known at the shelter for being one of the most helpful people that others know. He volunteers at the Isabella Community Soup Kitchen, getting there to help set up before the kitchen opens at 8 a.m. Pugh also likes to play his guitar for people at the shelter around dinner time.
“I’m not as good of a singer as some of the other people here, but I’m glad I can help entertain some of the people sometimes,” Pugh said.
Pugh has lived in Michigan for the past seven years. Before coming to Michigan, Pugh lived in Pennsylvania and earned his certificates in computer science from Pace Institute.
He moved to Midland in order to start a relationship with a woman he met online. They talked over the phone and online for eight months before Pugh decided to move to Michigan. Over the course of two years, Pugh discovered the woman he was engaged to had Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder, a disorder that makes a person obsessed with order, neatness and perfectionism, according to Health Line.
“I couldn’t take it. And that’s not something you can really learn about a person if you’re just talking to them online and over the phone,” Pugh said.
In a desperate act and no real way to get out of the relationship, Pugh sought out to commit a crime and get caught by the police. Pugh broke into a liquor store and stole a bottle of whiskey – a crime that would eventually be deemed a felony and would land him in the Tri County Community Adjudication Program, Tri-CAP, in Saginaw for two years.
Pugh later learned the judge that gave him this sentence and ruled that Pugh’s crime was a felony had investments in Tri-CAP, and got reimbursed for sending criminals to the program.
Religion and a belief in God has gotten Pugh through the hardships in his life. Pugh even has a bachelor’s degree in church ministries from Maranatha College in Wisconsin.
Pugh is a devout Baptist. He attends Grace Church in Mount Pleasant and on his social media, he uploads gospel music and videos of his interpretation of the bible.
Larry never makes excuses, but instead, when people seem shocked by his situation he merely says with a smile, “The Lord will provide.”
Larry Pugh, 59, digs through a dresser drawer in his storage unit in the Discount Storage Rentals lot off of Pickard Road in Mount Pleasant, Mich. on Nov. 5, 2019 looking for the receipt to his broken bluetooth headphones that have a two-year warranty. “I pay 50 dollars a month to keep my things here,” Pugh said. “I was living here for about 2 months before I got caught and (the owners) threatened to call the police.”
Pugh smiles at Faith Lytle, 1, while playing acoustic guitar in the Isabella County Restoration House day shelter while they wait to be bussed over to the First Church of Nazarene to spend the night. “I’ve been playing guitar for 40 years and I love this acoustic guitar,” Pugh said. “I used to play in a rock band where I played electric guitar, and the songs I now play on my acoustic guitar sound Celtic.”
Pugh walks into Bio Life to donate plasma. Pugh donates plasma every Wednesday and Saturday in order to earn the little income he has, or about 100 dollars each week. “It was hard at the beginning because if they test you and your protein is too low, they’ll turn you away,” Pugh said. “I was having to eat a lot of peanut butter in order to get my protein up to donate.”
Pugh fills out information and signs an application at the Isabella County Restoration House in order to get on the waitlist for low income housing in the county. He was on the waitlist before but the voucher expired, taking Pugh off the list. “The voucher expires after four months if you don’t find any housing or nothing opens up,” Pugh said. “I didn’t think you could reapply for a voucher but Sam (Campbell) at ICRH looked into and told me I could reapply.”
Pugh smokes a cigarette before heading into the Isabella County Restoration House day shelter to get on the list to get a bed and stay the night at the First Church of Nazarene. Everyone that wants to have a place to stay for the night in the shelter needs to check into the day shelter at 4:30 p.m. everyday – otherwise, the shelter cannot guarantee they’ll have a bed for each individual.
Julie Foss, a part time employee at the Isabella Community Soup Kitchen, passes off a cooler to Pugh to bring into the kitchen for breakfast from the Gordon Food Services Truck that is temporarily being used as a refrigerator while new refrigerators are being installed at the soup kitchen. “I know it’s been a pain for them to have to come out here in the morning to get all the food,” Pugh said. “I just try to help as much as I can.”
Mary McMillan, 48, laughs while telling Pugh about her high school days going to the roller rink and ice rink to scope out boys from the football and lacrosse teams while they eat dinner at the First Church of Nazarene. During this week, the First Church of Nazarene was the location for the Isabella County Restoration House rotating shelter, where people without homes can come for a place to eat dinner and sleep for the night.
Pugh takes a break from shoveling the side walk and walks over to Dawn, the head cook of the Isabella Community Soup Kitchen, as she pulls up in her car to open up the soup kitchen for the day. Pugh sometimes gets to the soup kitchen before 7 a.m. to help the staff set up for the day, taking down chairs, setting out food and this particular morning he helped clear the sidewalk of snow from the night before.