Reno tale likened to Faron Hall case

"Now he's dancing with death," she grimly told me in late December.

Faron had just left a 58-day stay in an alcohol rehab facility and at that point he still had stitches on his face from a beating in front of a Main Street hotel.

Then last Saturday afternoon at his Manitoba Housing apartment in St. Boniface, "the homeless hero" almost had that Last Tango that his friend and now self-appointed spokesperson foresaw. Some street pals of Faron's allegedly beat him so badly about the head that the face of homelessness in Winnipeg was unrecognizable.

Police have charged a man and a woman in the attack that originally left Faron in critical condition.

Marion Willis isn't clairvoyant. Actually, she's so angry it's a wonder she can see straight, never mind into the future. She's not angry at Faron, of course. She's angry because she feels there should have been a supportive plan in place to gently bridge him back into his newly sober life. And beyond.

Marion Willis is right about that. But don't take her word for it. Or even mine.

Malcolm Gladwell is the bestselling author of books with catchy titles like Blink. But it's a book called What the Dog Saw -- a collection of insightful essays Gladwell originally wrote for The New Yorker magazine -- that got my attention last weekend. One chapter in particular: Million Dollar Murray: Why problems like homelessness may be easier to solve than to manage.

Reading about "Million Dollar Murray" reminded me of Faron Hall.

Murray was an alcohol-addicted homeless man from Reno who made a name for himself because he was such a character and good guy. Such a good guy that he became kind of a pet project of a couple of cops who were constantly picking him up when he was on one of his vodka binges.

One of them was a Reno bicycle cop named Patrick O'Bryan.

"He would get picked up," O'Bryan said of Million Dollar Murray, "get detoxed, then get back out a couple of hours later and start up again. A lot of guys on the streets who've been drinking, they get so angry. They are so incredibly abrasive, so violent. Murray was such a character and had such a great sense of humour that we somehow got past that. Even when he was abusive, we'd say, 'Murray, you know you love us,' and he'd say, 'I know' -- and then go back to swearing at us."

O'Bryan and his police partner Steve Johns pleaded with him to stop drinking. Once -- when Murray was placed in a treatment program that amounted to house arrest -- he did stop drinking and actually thrived under the structure. Murray got a job and worked hard. Then the program ended.

"Once he graduated out," O'Bryan said, "he had no one to report to, and he needed that."

That's what happened to Faron Hall.

He was fine when he had structure and supportive people around.

Then the program ended.

It doesn't have to be that way, though -- and it shouldn't be.

One day, O'Bryan and Johns did some calculations on what Murray's lifestyle cost "the system" in substance-abuse treatment, doctors' fees and ambulance pickups over a 10-year period. O'Bryan's conclusion was sobering.

"It cost us one million dollars not to do something about Murray."

Hence "Million Dollar" Murray.

Gladwell came to his own conclusion about the cost of not treating Murray.

"It would probably have been cheaper to give him a full-time nurse and his own apartment."

In fact, Gladwell reported, Denver discovered that actually doing something -- housing and caring for the hard-core homeless -- could be accomplished for about one-third of what was being spent cycling them endlessly through the system.

Gladwell isn't naive about success rates with such hard cases.

"They need time and attention and lots of money," he wrote. "But enormous sums of money are already being spent on the chronically homeless."

That's why Marion Willis wants a supportive, structured system for people like Faron Hall.

It never did happen in Reno.

About six years ago, Steve Johns -- the Reno cop who spent more than a decade picking up Million Dollar Murray -- called his wife from work.

He was weeping. She thought something had happened to a police officer.

"Oh my gosh," she recalled saying. "What happened?'

He said, "Murray died last night. "

gordon.sinclair@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition February 9, 2010 B1