Homeless couple gets home from Upstate volunteers

GREENVILLE, S.C. (AP) Steve and Mary Payne have not lived in a home of their own in 10 years.

Singularly and together, they've lived in shelters, with family and in a tent in an encampment under the Pete Hollis bridge known as Tent City.

They recently saw the two-bedroom, one-bath house with a glassed-in porch that, once renovated, will become their home for the next year.

It's available through a new program from United Housing Connections called Restore a Home.

"I still think it's a dream," Steve Payne said, standing in a large kitchen that was clearly his wife's favorite room.

"It's big," she said. "Won't be running into people."

"We used to have Thanksgiving and Christmas. The whole family," her husband said.

"Let's plan on that again," said Rick Ingram, the interim executive director of United Housing Connections who showed the Paynes the house, which is in the beginning stages of renovation.

Steve and Mary Payne were featured in a five-part series in The Greenville News last November that showed Greenville County has the second highest population of homeless people in the state after Richland, where Columbia is located. The series described life under the bridge, where the Paynes were new residents, where they celebrated their 32nd wedding anniversary.

The newspaper found that people with unreliable income or on disability, as the Paynes are, couldn't afford a place to live, sending them into the streets, shelters and tent communities. The problem is exacerbated by low-paying jobs and limited public transportation.

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Homeless couple gets home from Upstate volunteers