Terminal Island Prison Inmates Raise Cash to Help Feed Homeless

Given a choice between the shelter and three meals a day he has now and the bleak life he once led as a homeless person, Samuel Brooks would take life on the streets without hesitation.

“There’s nothing like freedom. That’s most important to me,” said Brooks, 36, who has been an inmate at the Federal Correctional Institution at Terminal Island for more than a year. “But there’s nothing like being homeless either. I understand the plight of the individuals down there.”

So, on Friday, Brooks joined fellow inmate John Bastian in the prison’s chapel to present a check for $525.50 to the Los Angeles Mission to help feed the homeless.

Donated by 58 inmates during a two-week fund-raising drive, the money represents a large chunk of the income, which averages less than $5 a month, that the men make working at the prison.

“We understand here the alienation of people on the outside, because many of us have lived in those circumstances before,” said Bastian, 47, a bank robber who started the drive after seeing an advertisement about the mission’s program.

“We’re not exactly in the lap of luxury here, but at least we’re fed and we have a bed,” he said. “We understand more than most people do, and I think that’s why the guys were so willing to help.”

Mission spokesman Al Byrne said the money will provide more than 300 meals at the downtown facility.

“I was very pleasantly surprised” to hear of the inmates’ donation, Byrne said. “Considering the fact that people here are obviously not in the most pleasant circumstances . . . it is wonderful to see their recognition that there are people who are in a worse position.”

Bastian, who said he worked with the homeless as an outreach counselor in downtown Los Angeles before his imprisonment four years ago, noted that he often was on the verge of homelessness himself.

“Prisoners share many of the same feelings with the homeless--the inability to cope, the dependency, the desperation,” he said. “People don’t understand how it can be.”

For Brooks, who expects to finish serving his sentence for bank fraud by January, 1992, the donation drive was a chance to honor people “who haven’t made the mistake I made.”

“We in prisons are supposed to be the hard guys and tough guys with a lot of guts,” Brooks said. “But the people on the outside (who are) homeless have the true courage. They would rather suffer than break the law.”