Wichita police officer works hand-in-hand with the homeless

Fred Linker and Nate Schwiethale are unlikely friends.

When they first met, Linker was homeless. He had a long beard, and it wasn’t uncommon for him to drink half a gallon of vodka daily.

Schwiethale is a police officer.

He leads the Wichita Police Department’s Homeless Outreach Team, which he built from the ground up since its inception in 2013.

Linker is one of the program’s success stories. He now has stable employment, owns a house and multiple cars.

He credits Schwiethale and the other outreach officers, as well as various city housing officials, for saving him from certain death on the streets, where he lived for 22 years.

“I’m happy and content with where I’m at,” Linker said. “If it wasn’t for those people, I’d probably be dead today. I’d be the next statistic.”

Schwiethale and Linker still text each other almost daily. He and his wife have been over to Linker’s house for a housewarming barbecue, and he usually eats lunch with Linker weekly.

Linker calls Schwiethale “my brother.”

Schwiethale has made it his personal goal to reduce Wichita’s homeless population.

And it’s working.

Development of outreach

When Schwiethale first joined the Wichita Police Department in 2001, there was no Homeless Outreach Team, nor any semblance of camaraderie between the homeless and police.

He responded to call after call: vagrancy, panhandling, drinking in public.

“I just kind of realized I was spinning my wheels a lot,” he said. “It was a revolving door through the court system. I kept seeing the same guys. Ten years later they were still homeless.”

So he started looking for better ways to solve Wichita’s homeless problem. He found inspiration in the Colorado Springs Police Department and adopted some of its policies in developing Wichita’s Homeless Outreach Team, a nearly 10-year project.

The goal of the team, which employs three officers and a supervisor, is to divert minor charges away from homeless individuals and get them to service providers that will remedy the root causes of their homelessness.

“It tries to build a friendship or a partnership and get them to trust us so we can work on their recovery,” Schwiethale said. “You have to change the way you operate, have to treat them almost like a family member.”

The ‘Rooster’ and the cop

Linker, who said he is widely known on the streets as “Rooster,” was homeless on Wichita’s streets for 22 years before Schwiethale came into his life.

He says he is a chronic alcoholic and always will be, but he has not touched alcohol in three years.

“That was my numbness,” he said. “That was my medicine to block everything out, and it’s took a toll on me.”

Linker now works full-time at a woodworking shop and has his own side business he operates on the weekends. He first met Schwiethale when he was drunk in 2012. Schwiethale caught Linker urinating in public.

Schwiethale recognized the potential in Linker and saw what kind of person he could become, he said.

“He’s a good person, very trustworthy – he just had a drinking problem,” he said. “That was it. That was the reason he was homeless.”

So he kept coming back.

Schwiethale busted Linker multiple times for public urination and disorderly conduct, taking him to detox services in Wichita 13 times.

He didn’t give up.

“He was like your extreme homeless guy in the park every day, drinking a beer and refusing the shelters,” Schwiethale said. “The police officers were fed up with him.”

One day, Schwiethale ran into Linker at Seneca Park. He was sitting alone at the tennis courts with a brand-new fifth of vodka in hand.

Schwiethale pulled his police cruiser in front of Linker.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“I think I’m fixing to get drunk today,” Linker replied.

“You really want that, to go to jail?”

“You know what, jail sounds pretty good – three hots and a cot – but you know what, can you help me better?” Linker said.

Linker handed him his unopened bottle of vodka, which Schwiethale opened and poured on the ground before taking Linker to detox services.

“The average alcoholic with have seven relapses on average before he finally quits and turns his life around – you have to understand that part of the process and just accept it,” Schwiethale said.

Linker enrolled in the Housing First program and started turning his life around. He now is completely self-sufficient and draws no government assistance.

Three years later, Linker remains friends with Schwiethale, the man who saved him from the streets.

“He’s a great guy, and I still enjoy his company,” Schwiethale said. “To see someone like Rooster turn aroud and do what he’s doing, that says a lot to people about the effectiveness of our program.”

Homeless in Wichita

While homeless shelters typically open overflow spaces to accommodate increased demand in the winter, some homeless people opt not to use them.

Linker said he rarely went to shelters when he was on the street.

“A lot of them look at it as a handout that’s a recurring thing over and over,” he said. “I go to McDonald’s for breakfast every day before I go to work on North Broadway, and I see so many that’ve got the potential, that I’ve lived with on the streets, that have been kicked out of the program.

“They just choose … to stay stuck.”

Denny Bender, executive director of the Union Rescue Mission on North Hillside, said some homeless people don’t trust shelters.

“Most of the men I’ve talked to, they choose to live that way because of a lack of trust with other individuals or they have been hurt or want to maintain their independence,” he said. “They don’t want anyone telling them what they can or can’t do and they’re willing to endure the inconvenience and the degrading nature of homelessness just to maintain that independence.”

Homelessness is a complex issue and one that’s scope is difficult to ever get a good grasp on, despite “valiant” efforts by the United Way of the Plains to count the homeless every January, Bender said.

According to a 2015 point-in-time count, Wichita had 561 people who were “literally” homeless, which means a person lacks a fixed, regular and adequate nighttime residence. That includes people in emergency shelters and transitional housing, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

The numbers showed an 11 percent decrease compared to 2014.

Pat Hanrahan, president of the United Way of the Plains, said in May that decrease can be attributed to increased cooperation between local agencies that serve the homeless.

Schwiethale’s team with the police department surely accounts for some of those figures as well.

The Homeless Outreach Team was recently recognized by the federal government to be used as a role model for other departments across the country starting similar programs.

Since getting off the streets himself, Linker now pays it back by assisting Schwiethale and the outreach team by providing information on other homeless people in Wichita.

Being homeless in Wichita for 22 years, he said he knows “probably 90 percent” of chronically homeless people in Wichita.

“I’ve got eyes and ears on the streets,” he said. “Just because I’m out of the elements doesn’t mean I don’t know what’s going on out here because I care about my brothers.”

Linker encouraged others who may be struggling with homelessness not to be afraid to “stick your foot out” and admit you need help.

He said he has buried 13 people he used to live with out on Wichita’s streets, the most recent in October. He doesn’t want there to be a 14th.

“I do not wish homelessness on anybody,” he said. “There (are) places out there that will help, and that’s a fact.”

This story was originally published November 18, 2015 at 7:43 PM with the headline "Wichita police officer works hand-in-hand with the homeless."