Hagat man shares his struggles since becoming homeless

A Hagat man shares his heartbreaking story of how he went from guiding Guam’s restaurant industry to finding himself on the streets. The community is hoping something can be done to help the man get back on his feet.

54-year-old Johnny Nededog was well known in the island’s restaurant industry, helping guide it in the late 90's to early 2000s. "My ability to run a restaurant, to this day, is mindblowing," he shared. He was the general manager at GPO, Micronesia Mall, Jamaican Grill, Proa and Kahtre Bistro and more. 

He never expected to find himself homeless or living out of a pavilion at Nimitz Beach in Hagat.

"What happened? I got crippled. I got sick. I got blind. Cancer hit," he explained. He’s in constant pain everyday and unable to work.  "All these is what I got to take everyday," he said as he took a bunch of medications from his bag. "Everyday. All of these everyday."

But when he needed help at his lowest, he says he was turned away.  He recalled, "You’d think after working for more than 30 years, there’d be some kind of program. I stayed out in that storm because no one will take me in with my dogs."

He won't leave his two shihtzus, Daisy and Daphne, who stuck by him even when his family left. They're his eyes and voice, alerting him and others when a seizure creeps up or when he falls down. 

"Thank God for my babies barking at every little thing. But it's about them you know. I don’t care where I go as long as I have them," he said.

He recounts an especially heartbreaking time just two weeks ago during Typhoon Bolaven when no shelter would take him in with his dogs.  "I climbed in through that bathroom through the top. And I stayed there even though the rain came in. I covered me and my dog with a trashbag. And I sat there in filth because no body would take me in.. I never felt so alone," he said.

Nededog says attempts to find housing through the Guam Housing and Urban Renewal Authority continuously falls short with a long waitlist. "I’ve tried GHURA - I'm still number 30 [on the waitlist]. I’ve tried Catholic Social Services."

Plus he hasn’t seen his Social Security disability benefits, despite multiple calls, saying, "nobody has been answering up there and they keep telling me it's coming. You know I saw my psychiatrist and he said there’s no way in hell you can go back and work."

He feels stuck with no way out. "I sold everything, everything is gone. There has to be some kind of program out there for somebody like me who has worked my ass off. Don’t tell me there’s nothing because I have dogs," he said.

A light in that darkness, the community coming together to keep him on his feet. "The Filipino community, the Taotao Hagat community, everybody is...I may not get that from my sisters, but I get it from my brother and from the community of Agat," he said.

KUAM reached out to the Hagat Mayor’s Office to see how they can help. Vice Mayor Christopher Fejeran says he would be visit him after our interview. 

"This is news to us," Fejeran said. "I know prior to the storm, he was living out at Nimitz Beach. But as far as his personal situation, I don’t know what’s going on. So maybe we’ll pay him a visit and find out what’s going on with his situation and how we can help as an office." Asked what they could do to help, he replied "We need to see what his situation is then we can refer him, because we don’t have a temporary shelter. We can see what resources are out there to assist him."

It’s resources that Nededog desperately needs...and soon.