Sunday, August 03, 2003

Every presidential visit needs the local applause line. That is why Royal Patterson sat bolt upright in front of the television in his Sharpsburg apartment last week and, for a passing moment, felt the cloud of anonymity lift from his life.

President Bush was Downtown, wooing members of the Urban League at their national convention. At one point he gave a sales pitch for his administration's funding of faith-based charities and cited North Hills Community Outreach, a church-run charity. Patterson suspected he might be mentioned. A White House speechwriter had called twice to ask about details of his life and what North Hills had done for him.

In the middle of his speech, Bush explained how his faith-based program worked for one man:

"A fellow named Royal Patterson went to this program. He was a painter for 27 years. And then he was unable to climb up a ladder. So he goes to North Hills. They gave him food. They gave him bus passes. They helped him to get a new job."

Tears welled in Patterson's eyes. The president of the United States had spoken his name. He isn't registered to vote, but if he were, Royal Patterson would vote for George Bush.

Patterson, 47, a man with no savings, medical bills topping $40,000 and bill collectors jangling the phone, fell into the abyss in April of this year. He was a self-employed painter driving to a job when he blacked out at the steering wheel.

The doctors still haven't figured out what happened, but warned him not to get on a ladder again.

Patterson had never paid into the workers compensation program. He couldn't afford to. At the $600 a week he averaged painting the houses of the better off, Patterson and his wife, Darlene, lived from paycheck to paycheck. His auto insurer stiffed him on the lost wages clause of his policy, saying his blackout must have been caused by a preexisting condition.

By June the utilities were close to being shut off, he was behind in his rent and his hospital expenses had easily passed the $10,000 covered by his insurance.

His pastor sent him to North Hills Community Outreach.

"They were on the computer like that," Patterson said, snapping his fingers.

What North Hills did was cover the Pattersons' gas bill. They provided bus tickets so he could ride to town and search for work. They signed him up for a special assistance program for his electricity bill.

To catch up on his rent, Patterson borrowed money "from somebody who really didn't have it -- but they loaned it to us." The combined help from North Hills and a generous friend was enough to keep the couple from crashing entirely.

Fay Morgan, executive director at North Hills, said the most important service, really, was performed by the caseworker, Melissa Lazzara, who walked the Pattersons through the process of finding work and straightening out their most pressing bills.

"Case management is the most important service," said Morgan. "That's not what clients remember. They remember the bus passes."

What is also interesting, though, is that, while Bush talked about how Patterson's case shows how his administration's faith-based program is making a difference, the $76,000 in federal funds from which North Hills Community Outreach helps people has been funneled through the Allegheny County Department of Human Services since the mid-1990s -- five years before Bush took office.

Royal later found work as a security guard at a Downtown office building, pulling down $8.20 an hour with no benefits. He is ineligible, he said, for Medicaid or Social Security benefits. Darlene is looking for work. Before the car crash, Royal averaged $600 a week. Today he earns $328.

After both Royal and Darlene found work (she part-time at a grocery store) they sent along a thank-you note so heartwarming that it brought their case immediately to mind when the White House called in search of a case to highlight in the President's speech.

Everything about Royal and Darlene Patterson suggests that if they voted -- and they do not -- they would likely be drawn to the Democratic Party. When I asked them about whether they would favor national health insurance, Royal was puzzled.

"It's like they have in Canada," a neighbor interjected. "Everybody gets the same hospital benefits."

"I wouldn't care. I'd be covered," Royal said. Bush, needless to say, is not a supporter of Canadian-style health care. Nor is he likely to call off the hounds currently snapping at the impoverished ankles of Royal and Darlene Patterson.

"Is he for the rich? Of course he's for the rich. The Republicans are always for the rich," Patterson said. But Bush's appeal is, at least, cogent. Patterson admits he knows almost nothing about politics, but what he does know about politics is that Ronald Reagan "didn't take people's crap" and that George W. Bush projects a strong face to a world that seems unduly hostile.

"If I was to vote I would take Bush again," Patterson said. "Granted, he's not handing me a check here, but when Bush got in I knew he was gonna do something for the country."

There is, on one level, something moving about these words because they reflect a man who has little who wants to believe in a cause bigger than himself.

On the other, there is the puzzling sense of how mere acknowledgement by the powerful is enough to woo a man who didn't even bother to have Patterson invited to his speech.

At the very bottom of it, though, there is the lesson that politics can still be done on a retail level.

Or, as Patterson explained it: "Well, a man mentions my name -- I ought to vote for him."

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