After 3 years of seeing the same man on the corner, she finally asked why — and changed his life forever

A man named Victor Hubbard had been standing on the same street corner for three years until Ginger Jones Sprouse finally decided to step in and learn more about him. The Texas woman learned that the man in his 30s was homeless and suffering from mental health issues. The heartbreaking reason he was always waiting at the same corner was because he was dropped off at that spot by his mother and told to wait for her to return. She never came.

“He stands and looks, taps the pole, squints, dances, waves and sometimes just stares,” Sprouse wrote in a 2017 GoFundMe page, “He is a sweet, gentle man who happens to be mentally ill. If you have ever heard the term ‘falling through the cracks,’ he is the definition.” Sprouse would drive by Victor’s street corner in Clear Lake, Texas, four different times a day on her way to work at the Art of the Meal. Soon the two struck up a friendship.

"Police, fire and local city mental health resources know of him. Know him very well in fact. He has family in the area that declined to help him. It is told his mother dropped him on the corner and told him to wait for her to come back. He believed her. So he waits and waits and waits," she continued on the website. She realized she needed some more helping hands to ease Victor’s struggles. "So we, as a community, are coming together to find him the mental health help he needs. That is priority one. Once we get him stable in that regard, it is my desire to see him in a peaceful home with friends to support him and even a job. If you want to meet someone who is eternally optimistic, positive and humble go visit him. He will out-bless you every time," she added.

“I began to get more and more concerned as I knew winter was coming and I thought, ‘So what’s going to happen now?’” Sprouse told MyBayArea Radio. “So he and I started talking about maybe how would he feel about sometimes coming to my house to get out of the bad weather and that’s how we started. It’s been quite the journey.”

Not only did the GoFundMe page raise over $35,000, Sprouse had also started a Facebook page that gave regular updates on Victor’s life. At the time, Sprouse told those who were following his story that he had been doing great. She was able to get Hubbard into mental health clinics, take him off the streets and even provide him a job in her business’s kitchen.

In a January 2017 update, she explained, "I have good news to report for Victor! He is officially off the street and visiting the corner less every day! We have him in the mental health system and his medication is being regulated and he is receiving care that will continue long term. He is very thrilled that things are progressing."

As for Hubbard, he expressed gratitude towards Sprouse. “She came around and she kind of saved me. It’s like grace,” he said on KHOU.com, reports The Independent. In fact, according to the outlet, one of his uncles was eventually able to help him see his mother again. “I got to talk to her and I really feel like I accomplished something,” Hubbard told the TV station.

This article originally appeared 1 year ago.