Please help 83 year old Ronald Dupont Find Safe Housing

Please view the YouTube video interview of Ronald Dupont.

THE VIDEO IS AVAILABLE TO WATCH AND UNDERSTAND MORE ABOUT RON AND HIS SITUATION.

THE video can be found at the bottom of the page under older updates from April 14. Click on older updates and scroll to bottom and the video is there.

THE STORY BELOW TELLS HOW I CAME TO KNOW RON AND WHAT WE FOUND WHEN WE WENT TO VISIT HIM AT HIS DILAPIDATED RV CAMPER WHERE HE RESIDES IN ORDER TO OPERATE HIS TINY BUSINESS OF POTTED PLANTS SALES TO TRY TO EARN A LIVING. THERE ARE 2 UPDATES ALSO EXPLAINING WHATS GOING ON AND WHATS NEEDED FOR RON TO AFFORD BOTH SAFE HOUSING AND A SAFER AUTOMOBILE.

Hi, I’m Lynne Sachs, a retired empty nester who visits our local Palm Beach Gardens, FL. community greenmarket every Sunday. There, I patronize a local 83-year-old man named Ronald Dupont, who is a vendor of potted plants. He looks just like anyone's grandfather and behaves like a very gentle and kind person. I’ve visited his plant stand several times and appreciated his knowledge and passion for horticulture that he so willingly shares with every customer. Over the past year, I’ve grown to know him better and learned that he struggles to survive because he’s suffering from macular degeneration and losing his eyesight, battling a badly infected wound on his leg, along with a heart condition all while living in a dilapidated RV-type trailer with a leaking roof that has caused mold and damaged what little belongings he had like clothing, furniture, appliances, etc.

While I was very concerned about his description of his circumstances, I asked him if I could help in some way by paying him a visit with my husband to see what could be done to improve his situation. My husband and I are just average people and retirees who also have health issues from a lifetime of hard work but willing to help someone less fortunate and in great need. Ron refused our offer to help perhaps out of pride or embarrassment for his living conditions.

I asked Ron for his address so that I could send him something by mail and instead chose to go and deliver a couple of hot meals to him directly. We went out to a rural area of Loxahatchee Fl where Ron rents a tiny parcel of land where he operates his tiny one man business that raises potted plants for sale at the local farmers market each Sunday. We found Ron in a small camper trailer parked on the lot. We greeted him and asked if we may offer him a meal and talk with him about his situation. Ron allowed us inside his rv camper which was really in poor shape because of its age. The roof has been leaking for a long time and it has caused damage to the ceiling, walls and floors. What little furniture, clothing and appliances he had were water damaged. Ron had only a badly worn out recliner to rest on, his bed mattress was soaked and covered in mold. The rv camper has no hookup for a septic tank so there is no working indoor bathroom or toilet. Ron bathes outside under a garden hose and using an outdoor toilet. The camper doesn’t have an electric hookup but an extension cord was run from a well pump that supplies water to Ron’s potted plants. Ron had only a tiny pint sized refrigerator that wasn’t cold enough to keep food safely. There was a window air conditioner that only blows warm air. The heat and humidity were overwhelming inside of the camper and the very tough to endure.

there is no option to install another camper on the lot because the lot owner has the property for sale and won’t allow Ron to make any changes or improvements because he wants Ron to leave but won’t actually throw him out YET. Ron does pay $750 per month rent on the lot but owns his dilapidated camper outright.

Ron never smoked or used alcohol and is a very spiritual person. We believe that he is worthy of anything we could do for him. We cried on the way home and knew we had to do something but didn’t know what or where to start. I reached out to neighbors on social media for advice and support in the form of small donations for clothing and essentials along with a little bit of financial support just to address Ron’s immediate needs.

In order to address those immediate needs, I rounded up some volunteers who assisted in putting a blue tarp over the roof to prevent leakage and patched the holes in the floors, walls, and ceiling to make it safer, but by no means is it sustainable. Ron really needs the support from the community to help fund his effort to find other sustainable housing because his temporary housing situation is not suitable for this elderly gentleman and with Florida’s hurricane season coming, he’s not safe in the dilapidated RV camper trailer. If the campaign is successful, Ron can potentially retire from the garden and leave the RV camper. He could perhaps purchase a used manufactured home (not a camper) and rent or purchase a lot to park it on where it can be hooked up to septic sewage, electric and water utilities so that he’s no longer camping out and “roughing it”. consider that this man has been literally camping out for more than the last decade. We would need to raise $150,000 to purchase a manufactured home and rented lot to place it on if Ron were to stay in his rural environment where he’s happiest. The alternatives are to find an affordable rental which has been extremely difficult in Flordia because of high demand due to so many new residents since 2020 coming to the area from other parts of the country.

we have reached out to every single social program available like religious groups and veterans groups to ask for assistance with housing but all have responded that nothing is available at all and the waitlists are very very long perhaps longer than the time Ron has left on earth.

Ron is very bright with full cognitive abilities and also very frugal. He’s never ever asked for help from anyone. He’s served his country in the army reserves and national guard back in 1964 and was available to be deployed to Vietnam. He’s worked his entire life to support his family of nine children who have been scattered across the country and having their own financial and medical problems so it’s hard to see one another. It’s been a while since Ron had a visit from them, mostly because he doesn’t want them to know how bad things have gotten for him. He and his wife separated nearly 20 years ago and she occasionally calls but has no clue as to how things are and suffers her own health and financial problems so she can’t really do anything for him.

I’m just an average person with limited resources and NO experience in fundraising, but I just couldn’t pass by this kind soul and not try to help. I reached out on our local social media and had a little success with small cash, clothing, food, and volunteer services donations to temporarily support his current immediate needs.

I would like to broaden his support by reaching out to the larger community of caring, generous people who truly want to help. I had no idea where this would go, and we are so grateful for the support from the local community thus far, however Ron needs more help to get out of that dilapidated trailer. The photos below depicts the rotten recliner we found him in which is where he sleeps every night after a hard days work in the garden to grow plants for sale on Sunday to put food on the table. The other photos show conditions inside the trailer and the blue roofing tarp we just installed on the roof to help keep it drier inside. It’s really beyond repair, but he has nowhere else to go until we can find other affordable options and have the funds to help. If you can help by donating even a tiny bit please do. If we take anything away from this experience it is that in todays busy world it’s easy to overlook those right next to us who may be suffering and even more difficult to know how to help.

On behalf of Ron I sincerely thank you all. Please spread the word.

together we can lift this kind and deserving soul out of his present conditions and help him to afford safer housing.