Tim Walters was in a bind.
He was sharing a two-bedroom apartment with his sister and her partner, and things weren't going well.
"You know, they were going through their rough patches of life, more so on her boyfriend's side, and her just trying to be to support him," he told me recently. "And, you know, with just my four children, with them being around at times, it could be overwhelming in a small apartment, you know."
Tim's kids aren't little either. They range in age from 12 to 17. He splits custody of them with their mom, so they weren't in the apartment all the time, but still it was a lot for everybody to deal with. Tim says his sister didn't exactly kick him out, but she was dropping hints.
"She didn't push me out the door, but she definitely was, you know...because I was comfortable there. I mean, even though my plan was still to get out of there and get my own place. You know, I I'm a man that needs to be in my own home space, because I know I need to lead it. But there was talks going on, and I knew how to get out sooner or later."
There was a problem: Tim couldn't afford to pay his own rent. He had a full-time job as a custodian at Hackett Middle School in Albany. He says his salary was $65,000 a year - with overtime, he earned close to 80. But he also had child support payments over $2,000 a month. Between that, car payments and groceries for five, he says he didn't have enough left for rent, let alone a security deposit.
So he made a choice.
At Hackett Middle School, on the fourth floor, he noticed an empty room. "Nobody had been using it for anything. It was just basically a storage room. It was up on the fourth floor, and I was like, you know what, I know I can take care of it, I know I can make this a livable space. And so I did."
The room was pretty sparse: it had two windows, a fan, and some HVAC equipment. Tim put a couple beds in, plus a futon, and a desk. He hung some family photos on the wall. Late last year, he and his kids moved in.
He says it never felt like home. "And that's that's because I was never comfortable to make it home, because I knew it was wrong. But I did try to make it my best to make it feel comfortable. My plan was to always get out."
Seven months went by. Tim says they weren't exactly living at the school - just sleeping there. He told himself it was safer for his kids than a shelter. There was a basketball court and a football field where they could run around. Plus, Tim was often on duty late at night. If a pipe burst at the school, or the fire alarm went off, he was often the guy that got the call. That's all part of how he justified this whole thing to himself.
He did, however, tell his kids to keep it a secret. "I don't raise my kids to be liars, but I did tell him to not even talk about it with their mom, which they haven't, because she had no idea we were living there, and she never figured to ask. I'm surprised my kids kept that down low for that time. But at the same time, I told them, hey, you know, if you talk about it, and it comes out, it's alright."
As far as Tim knows, his kids never told anyone. But eventually the school figured out what he'd done as part of a district-wide investigation into overtime billings. School officials started reviewing security camera footage. Tim thinks that's how they caught him.
Back in May, he got called into a meeting with a human resources rep at the school. "She was like, 'So we know you're you're living here.' Hit me right away with the fact. And then, you know, I didn't say, 'No, I'm not.' I looked at her like...yeah. You got me."
The school told Tim he was being suspended. The police later charged him with misdemeanor trespassing. But now he had a bigger problem. He didn't know where he and his kids were going to sleep.
Luckily, he got a random phone call from a guy named Paul Kane. Or, as Paul calls himself, "Batman."
Paul says the story of the caped crusader has always resonated with him. "Early childhood tragedy turned into a dedication to helping the city. For me, you know, my father passed away when I was three, and my mother's blind, and I grew up in community-based programs. So, at this point in my life, it's only right that I'm providing those same opportunities, and caring about people who cared about me when they didn't have to."
Paul didn't know Tim, but he saw the story about him on Facebook. "You know, I understand he was breaking rules. At the same time, he didn't have a place to live. So when I was reading this story, my question became, well, what was this person missing, and how can we get them stable?"
So, Paul cold-called Tim. He told him he wanted to start a GoFundMe campaign to help him raise enough money for a couple months' rent. The campaign brought in $4,800, a lot of it from people who also didn't know Tim - like Stephen Tomaso, a real estate broker in Saratoga Springs. I reached Stephen by phone while he was in the car on vacation. He told me when he saw the campaign online, he didn't know who Tim was, but he thought to himself, "Hey, everybody makes mistakes."
Paul Kane also made another phone call to Greg Sheldon, who runs an Albany nonprofit called Eden's Rose. Eden's Rose does a lot of things, and one of them is to manage a stable of apartments. Their philosophy, Greg told me, is to get people housed first, and then worry about the details. "It's very hard to get a job when you're homeless, because when you put on your application the address of homeless shelter, there's a certain stigma that goes along with homelessness, even when you're applying for apartments. We're all three paychecks away from being in that same situation. So if we can help to get someone launched, that seems to be our specialty here."
Usually, Eden's Rose works with domestic violence survivors who are no longer safe at home, or asylum seekers who are working, but can't open bank accounts. Greg says they were happy to help Tim find an apartment, even though he doesn't exactly fit the normal profile. "I would say the difference here is he's visible. And so many of our clients go unseen."
As I was sitting with Tim in the studio here at WAMC, he pointed to a pair of sparkly earrings that he wears, as well as a thick necklace. When pictures of him started popping up on Facebook, he says the jewelry got a lot of attention. "This is not a very expensive necklace, all right?" he said, pointing to it. "This is $295, sterling silver. Fake diamond earrings - $25. I like to just look good, feel good. There was a comment on there, 'Oh, he can sell his necklace, his earrings for a month of rent.' No, I can't."
For the moment, Tim is staying with his mom. He's hoping to get moved into the Eden's Rose apartment soon. He's still waiting to hear if he can keep his job at Hackett Middle School, which declined to comment for this story.
"I will say my future will be brighter than it has been in the near path. I believe in that, and I'm very confident in that," Tim said. "I have a great work ethic, I got skills enough to make it in this world. I know it comes down to confidence, and I'm very confident myself."
