SAN DIEGO — Michael Garvey rakes the dirt path at the Point Loma Native Garden in Ocean Beach. He cleans the area, removes leaves and weeds, wipes the wooden benches, and supplies treats to the dogs who go for walks in the garden.
But soon, Garvey will not work at the small garden any longer.
Garvey is not a city employee who has been transferred to another job, he is a homeless senior who has been unhoused for nearly 40 years and has lived in the park for most of the past two years.
“It’s my home. It’s the home that I haven’t had. I’ve watched it grow from a dirt farm to this, it’s beautiful,” said Garvey.
Next week Garvey will move into his own studio apartment.
And while the 72-year-old Garvey may no longer serve as the constant caretaker, his larger mission is far from over.
For most of the past two years, Garvey has worked in hopes of bridging the gap between him and his other "outdoor neighbors" and his housed neighbors.
"We’re not all the same," said Garvey. "Everyone of us came out here for different reasons.”
With the help of Ocean Beach resident Robin Shushan, Garvey looks to launch his own website and create a non-profit called "Outside Neighbors" with the intent of establishing a line of communication between the housed and the unhoused.
Courtesy: Robin Shushan and Michael Garvey
While Garvey admits that San Diego's homelessness crisis is complex, he says more can be done to help the housed and unhoused better understand each other and work together to find skills and services that can benefit each other.
Garvey has established a four-prong approach to try and bridge the gap.
The first step, according to a document provided by Garvey and Shushan, is to hold bi-weekly work projects where unhoused people can volunteer their time and introduce themselves to community members.
Holding community service events will establish communication between the housed and the unhoused where people can raise concerns, offer suggestions, and make requests.
Garvey and Shushan then want to start a non-profit with a headquarters to provide basic amenities as well as day labor opportunities and an emergency shelter for those in need.
By doing so, Garvey believes those unhoused people who got help would help newcomers do the same.
But little if not any of Garvey's ideas would have ever surfaced if not for Ocean Beach resident Robin Shushan.
Shushan takes her terrier poodle rescue, Dash, to the small garden on a daily basis.
Shushan's dog, Dash, gravitated to Garvey and his milk bones.
"I thought he was a volunteer at the park, but he was always there, super friendly and was always either reading or writing," said Shushan.
One day Shushan found Garvey laying on one of the two park benches at the garden.
"He looked dead," said Shushan. "I went over to him and checked his pulse and he was totally out of it. His eyes were clouded over from cataracts and someone broke his glasses and stole his belongings."
Shushan says Garvey later told her that he was unable to get eye surgery because he is homeless.
When the rains began, Shushan invited Garvey to stay with her so that he could get the surgery. During the next six months, Garvey stayed with Shushan and she helped him get the surgery. The two also worked with homeless service providers PATH to try and get Garvey into transitional housing.
That's when Shushan offered to develop Garvey's "Outside Neighbors" plan.
"I created from my conversations with Michael and his notebooks full of writings. I just synthesized them for easily consumable bites and created a presentation, meant for the website once it got up and running. I purchased the domain name, OutdoorNeighbors.org, and a fictitious name statement so that he can open a bank account for the organization."
As to why Shushan began helping Garvey, she tells CBS 8, "I know that people see homeless people as almost another species, something to ignore, something that is just separate from them, in other words, different from us. I’ve been one of those people.
“But, what I’ve come to believe is that we are all seconds and inches away from being homeless. Anything can happen and it can happen to anyone.”
On August 8, Garvey and Shushan got final confirmation that Garvey will be moving into a studio apartment near Balboa Park.
"Through PATH, Michael is moving into a studio downtown and I put up a GoFundMe drive for him, and he should be moving in any day now," said Shushan. “There's over $600 now and he needs everything, a bed, dishes, things like that, so it’s pretty amazing after all of this time.”
While appreciative of all of Shushan's help, he still remains humbled, “The apartment idea is wonderful but I’m embarrassed about the page she set up, but it’ll help.”
As for his apartment Garvey says, “It is a block away from Balboa Park, it’s in an area that I’ve lived in and enjoyed before. The hotel is in beautiful shape, I get to cook my own food, I love to cook and I get to cook my own. It’s going to be wonderful.”
And while Garvey's new home will be several miles from the Point Loma Native Garden, Garvey plans to continue going to his old home three or four times a week to clean and most importantly, visit his furry dog friends.
“It’s unconditional love. They love you, period, and I don’t have that enough in my life, so I naturally gravitated to dogs.”