After living on the streets for many years, Anthony Daniels is now a resident of the Salvation Army hostel after he was removed from the area he called ‘home.’
Sunday Stabroek had previously reported on Anthony’s plight on Sunday, April 15.
According to Noreen Gaskin, who has been described as Daniels’s ‘guardian angel’, after he was evicted she approached the person in charge of the Salvation Army and it was agreed that he would stay there for the next six months.
The only sad part is the fact that he is now separated from his beloved dog Kesha, his only companion for a number of years, now being cared for by Gaskin.
Gaskin feeds dogs on the streets and would also feed the stray dogs in the compound of the Salvation Army. Through her daily trips there, she built a relationship with those in charge. Daniels is now staying at the facility free of cost and at the end of the six months, Gaskin said, they would decide on the way forward.
“He wants to make a difference with his life and he is now looking back, and he is now seeing the situation where he was and how bad it was,” Gaskin said adding that Daniels has adjusted well at the facility and they hope that with every day he remains there it would be a victory and step in the right direction.
Gaskin came in contact with Daniels through animal rights activist Syeada Manbodh who had become attracted to his dog Kesha after she observed them walking down the street.
“You could see that he loved his dog. It was as if she was his only hope,” Manbodh told this newspaper recently.
She had stopped and gave the dog some food and water and gave Daniels some money. There commenced a relationship among the three. Persons following Manbodh on Facebook saw posts about Daniels and Kesha and there was an outpouring of love and support in cash and kind.
“His luck has changed… people would go and hang with him and even offered to buy Kesha, but he said she is the love of his life, his lawyer, his doctor, his love,” Manbodh had said at the time.
Daniels later told this newspaper that he had lived on the streets for as long as he could remember and lamented the lack of support from his relatives. He had spoken about his father committing suicide and not being given the support of his mother. While he had expressed the will to do better, he was not clear on how this could be done.
One thing that was evident during his conversation with this newspaper was that Daniels adored his dog.
“One day I was begging, you know, and this man come to me and say, ‘Son I want you stray this dog and I will pay you’. And I said to myself no man I can’t do this to a dog. I can’t do this to a pet the same thing can happen to me. Well, the same thing happen to me because I living on the streets. I said, if I do good to this dog he can do good to me, he can be like my friend and watchman for me,” Daniels had related.
He then decided to name the dog Kesha after a woman in a movie he had seen years ago, who owned a dog that saved her life. “I remember the movie and I just name she after the woman. And I think the dog in the movie did name Kesha too,” he had said.
For now, Gaskin hopes Daniels allows himself to be helped and believes that once this is done things can only get better. She is happy that she sees him almost every day when she takes food for the dogs; she also provides all of his personal needs.
