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This article was published 08/11/2014 (4015 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

He wasn’t exactly a babe in the woods, but he wasn’t much more than a kid.

And that’s where he was living — in a tent in an urban forest.

At least he was a week ago today, when Free Press reader Pat Werestiuk sent me an email.

“Was on a morning walk in the Parker lands with my dogs and came across a homeless person in the woods,” Werestiuk wrote.

“I talked to him for a bit, 20-year-old boy, and left there thinking I need to help this kid. If you could call me… “

That’s how I came to meet Austin Saunders and how his story came to be introduced to Free Press readers Thursday. Turned out he had been living in the aspen-oak forest behind the Winnipeg Humane Society for about two weeks and was preparing to sleep there all winter if he couldn’t find work or social assistance or somewhere warmer and safer.

Or someone to rescue him.

Others walking their dogs along the off-leash paths had noticed his camp. The mysterious young man with the size-16 feet had become a Big Foot sort of character; he left tracks, but he and his tall and thin-as-a-poplar silhouette was rarely sighted.

Apparently no one but Werestiuk had taken the time to stop and talk and learn about the road that brought him to living alone in a forest, where he wore a suit and tie layered under his outerwear because he didn’t want to look like and be treated as a homeless person. If anyone had asked, as Werestiuk did, he would have told them he had been brought up in rural Manitoba until he was 12, when he was placed in a group home and later foster care because of his sometimes violent acting out.

The behaviour was linked to his being diagnosed with Asperger syndrome, a form of autism comedian Jerry Seinfeld suggested just this week he might have.

Austin also suffers from depression.

Austin told me no one, least of all the school system in rural Manitoba, was prepared for him and his behaviour. Could things have turned out differently for Austin and his family if he had been offered that kind of support? Maybe. Although his foster father teaches students who are on the autism spectrum.

Of course, news travels faster and farther than ever these days, and the same day it was published here, Austin’s story made it all the way to Texas.

“It is with great sadness that I read your story on Austin Saunders,” Angela Charette’s email began: “I am sad because I am the mother of a child with Asperger’s. I am sad because I now live in Dallas, Texas, and had hoped that the medical system in Canada took better care of people with autism/mental disorders than the system does here. I am sad because winter is coming, and I can’t imagine any human planning to live outside in Winnipeg.

“My child is 17.

“She will graduate valedictorian of her class, top 10 per cent on SAT tests and 15 hours of college credit when she finishes high school. Had she not had the medical/educational/psychological and financial opportunities that she was given, her story could have been just like Austin’s, or worse. At 10 and 11 years of age, (her) public school called the police and had her arrested. The second time was felony assault of a civil servant. Everything was stacked against her, and the educational system wanted to flush her into the criminal justice system. She was extremely angry, defensive, mistrustful and depressed.

“We are very fortunate that we were able to get her the therapy she needed and the private education that she benefited from. I have NO DOUBT that Austin Saunders has the same potential as my child. It breaks my heart how misunderstood autism is and how poorly served the high-functioning ones are in our educational and medical systems.

“Every child deserves opportunities to reach their potential. Every child deserves the emotional support they need to succeed.”

Yeah, Austin’s story is sad.

But it’s getting happier thanks to Pat Werestiuk.

As I mentioned in Thursday’s column, a friend of Werestiuk’s who owns a motel offered Austin a place with a bed, which put a smile on the face of a kid who said he had been sleeping on the riverbank by The Forks for most of the last seven months.

And several other Manitobans and agencies have emailed me with offers of cash, food, clothing, whatever Austin needs to get him by, at least for the moment.

One agency in particular, which asked not to be identified, offered what appears to be longer term help.

“Just wanted to follow up and let you know Austin and I have connected by phone today,” the person from the agency wrote late Thursday, “We will be meeting on Monday morning; if all goes well he should have a nice place to live by the end of next week, at the latest.”

As I wrote earlier this week, he’s out of the forest, but he’s not out of the woods. People are helping him.

But ultimately, he’s going to have to help himself. It’s the law of the jungle.

And the Winnipeg woods.

gordon.sinclair@freepresss.mb.ca