Homeless man ponders life at Santa Ana River Trail from a helicopter

MJ Diehl was offered a free helicopter ride to view his homeless encampment from the air. One of the largest homeless neighborhoods is along the riverbed next to the Anaheim Stadium parking lot. (Photo by Bill Alkofer, Orange County Register/SCNG)Homeless people in Orange County have lined the Santa Ana River Trail with hundreds of tents. (Photo by Bill Alkofer, Orange County Register/SCNG)A group of homeless people in the Honda Center encampment have encircled their tents with tarps. (Photo by Bill Alkofer, Orange County Register/SCNG)MJ Diehl was a passenger in this helicopter flown by Mark Robinson over Orange County homeless encampments. Robinson said the helicopter ride would normally cost about $600. (Photo by Jeff Gritchen, Orange County Register/SCNG)Homeless people in Orange County have lined the Santa Ana River Trail with hundreds of tents. (Photo by Bill Alkofer, Orange County Register/SCNG)This is an illustration an X-ray of MJ Diehl’s skull with a .44 caliber slug still lodged in his skull. Diehl was shot point blank in the head with a handgun in 2009. (Photo by Bill Alkofer, Orange County Register/SCNG)After being in the head at point blank range, MJ Diehl is now blind in his right eye. The slug from the .44-caliber handgun is still lodged in his skull. (Photo by Bill Alkofer, Orange County Register/SCNG)MJ Diehl’s girlfriend performed an emergency tracheotomy on him after Diehl was shot in the head and was left for dead, drowning in his own blood. (Photo by Bill Alkofer, Orange County Register/SCNG)MJ Diehl was offered a free helicopter ride by Revolution Aviation. He viewed his homeless encampment from the air. (Photo by Bill Alkofer, Orange County Register/SCNG)A homeless encampment fills a plaza at the Civic Center in Santa Ana. (Photo by Bill Alkofer, Orange County Register/SCNG)A homeless encampment fills a plaza at the Civic Center in Santa Ana. (Photo by Bill Alkofer, Orange County Register/SCNG)MJ Diehl has been living on the Santa Ana River Trail for four years. He’s unable to work because he suffers seizures due to a point-blank gunshot to his head. (Photo by Bill Alkofer, Orange County Register/SCNG)MJ Diehl and his friend Byron Pierce have a jam session near Pierce’s tent in the Honda Center homeless encampment. (Photo by Bill Alkofer, Orange County Register/SCNG)MJ Diehl and his friend Byron Pierce practice the Blind Faith song “Can’t find my way home” near Pierce’s tent in the Honda Center homeless encampment. (Photo by Bill Alkofer, Orange County Register/SCNG)Before being shot in the head in a handgun MJ Diehl was a commercial diver. “I’ve made dives as deep as 340 feet and saw paychecks as high as $10,000 for one week’s work,” Diehl said. (Photos courtesy of MJ Diehl)After recent rains the Santa Ana River is starting to be filled with water. A man rides along the bike trail through the homeless encampment across from Honda Center. (Photo by Bill Alkofer, Orange County Register/SCNG)A cross and shrine mark the spot where a homeless person named Jimmy Callahan was found dead on June 6. His tent was along the Santa Ana River Trail at Katella Avenue. (Photo by Bill Alkofer, Orange County Register/SCNG)Mark Robinson, CEO and chief pilot for Revolution Aviation offered MJ Diehl a free helicopter ride over homeless encampments in Orange County. (Photo by Bill Alkofer, Orange County Register/SCNG)Homeless people along the Santa Ana River Trail in Fountain Valley were forced to move out on November 10. (Photo by Bill Alkofer, Orange County Register/SCNG)Byron Pierce and MJ Diehl often get together and jam with their guitars near Pierce’s place along the Santa Ana riverbed. (Photo by Bill Alkofer, Orange County Register/SCNG)Angela Piefer is one of MJ Diehl’s friends who lives along the Santa Ana riverbed encampment. (Photo by Bill Alkofer, Orange County Register/SCNG)Angel Mayfield was one of MJ Diehl’s friends who lived along the riverbed in Anaheim. Mayfield was able to find housing recently. (Photo by Bill Alkofer, Orange County Register/SCNG)John Leonard took MJ Diehl out for lunch to celebrate Diehl’s birthday last year. (Photo by Bill Alkofer, Orange County Register/SCNG)MJ Diehl takes his dog for a walk through the Honda Center homeless encampment. “I know more peopole in the homeless community than I did ever in any apartment complex I’ve ever lived in,” Diehl said. (Photo by Bill Alkofer, Orange County Register/SCNG)MJ Diehl said that his dog Osiris knows more people than he does. Osiris is the Egyptian god of the afterlife who is associated with transition, regeneration and resurrection.(Photo by Bill Alkofer, Orange County Register/SCNG)Osiris’ calm demeanor is contrasted with many not-so-friendly dogs who protect the belongings of homeless people along the river trail. (Photo by Bill Alkofer, Orange County Register/SCNG)It’s common for homeless people to use solar panels to provide electricity to their tents. The most critical need is to charge cell phones. (Photo by Bill Alkofer, Orange County Register/SCNG)A teddy bear sits upon a pile of garbage and waste in a homeless encampment along Santa Ana River Trail. (Photo by Bill Alkofer, Orange County Register/SCNG)Residents of the Santa Ana River Trail built a shower last summer on the southern end of the encampment. Bruce Bishop cleans up after a day of work as a painter. The shower has since been shut down by the county. (Photo by Bill Alkofer, Orange County Register/SCNG)A sign in a River Trail encampment jests that there will be a rummage sale in the Anaheim Stadium parking lot. (Photo by Bill Alkofer, Orange County Register/SCNG)A bicylist carries a literal “kitchen sink” as he rides his bike through a rainy homeless encampment along the Santa Ana River Trail. (Photo by Bill Alkofer, Orange County Register/SCNG)Larry Ford flies a Gadsen flag on his tent. The flag was used during the American Revolution. (Photo by Bill Alkofer, Orange County Register/SCNG)Morgan Gallerito wore her sparkly mermaid dress as she cleaned out her encampment along the Santa Ana riverbed in Foutain Valley on November 10. “If I have to move, I might as well look good” shd said. (Photo by Bill Alkofer, Orange County Register/SCNG)Homeless people along the riverbed in Fountain Valley were forced to move out of the encampment on November 10. David Ramirez pauses during his move. (Photo by Bill Alkofer, Orange County Register/SCNG)The homeless people in the Santa Ana River Trail encampment are often creative with construction materials for their tents. (Photo by Bill Alkofer, Orange County Register/SCNG)A tent in the Honda Center encampment reads: “If you lived here you’d be homeless by now!!” (Photo by Bill Alkofer, Orange County Register/SCNG)Golf is a common pastime along the Santa Ana River Trail encampments. Lawrence Arnold works on his drive. (Photo by Bill Alkofer, Orange County Register/SCNG)MJ Diehl said that homeless shelters like Bridges at Kraemer Place would be too restrictive for him. “It’s three hots and a cot. They tell you when to get up, when to eat and when to leave,” he said. (Photo by Bill Alkofer, Orange County Register/SCNG)The sun sets on tents in a homeless ecampment located along the Santa Ana riverbed near Katella Avenue in Anaheim. (Photo by Bill Alkofer, Orange County Register/SCNG)The homeless encampments along the Santa Ana riverbed have a plethora of bicycles in various stages of disrepair. (Photo by Bill Alkofer, Orange County Register/SCNG)Cory Elmore’s tent abuts the parking lot of a hotel named Extended Stay America. “Most of the homeless people I know would rather that their tents were not an American extended stay,” said Diehl. (Photo by Bill Alkofer, Orange County Register/SCNG)MJ Diehl practices the song “Can’t find my way home” by Blind Faith. (Photo by Bill Alkofer, Orange County Register/SCNG)Show Caption of Expand
Michael “MJ” Diehl looks down from a helicopter, entranced by the homeless encampments that stretch along the Santa Ana River Trail some 300 feet below.
Nearly a decade ago, Diehl was left for dead after being shot point-blank in the head. He survived, but lost sight in one eye. Still, he views life with a wider perspective than many.

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“It’s amazing to see all this homelessness,” he says, “knowing that we live in one of the richest countries in the world, one of the richest states, along with one of the richest counties.”
It’s his first look from above at a place he knows all too well from the ground.
Diehl spies his own tent across from Honda Center.
“No one I’ve ever met wakes up one day and says ‘To hell with the American Dream, I think I’d rather be homeless’,” Diehl says.
He moved to the river four years ago, when the area was home to just a few dozen homeless people. They stayed out of sight back then, mostly beneath the bridges.
The helicopter ride is part of an outreach program at Newsong Church in Santa Ana. Parishioners wanted to raise public awareness about the lives of homeless people in Orange County.  One of the church members is Mark Robinson, a pilot and CEO of Revolution Aviation in Santa Ana. He came up with the idea of offering free helicopter flights to homeless people and then posting a video on the church website.
Robinson says that, as a pilot, he sees the yawning gap between “the mega-rich, with multi-million dollar jets, and the super-poor homeless people.”
A pastor at another church recommended Diehl for a ride.
How Diehl ended up at the river, and the reason he has remained, illustrate the precarious circumstances of many who are part of the homeless population in the riverbed encampments.

Near death
Diehl, 46, was born in Indiana. His stepfather worked in the construction business, so he bounced around from state to state, eventually landing in Anaheim. He became a commercial diver in 1992 doing underwater repairs and maintenance work on pipelines, power plants and ships.
It’s a dangerous but profitable job. “I’ve made dives as deep as 340 feet and saw paychecks as high as $10,000 for one week’s work,” he says.
That career ended on July 31, 2009.
Diehl got into a fight with a friend.  A short while later, the friend broke into his apartment and fired a single shot from a .44 caliber handgun into his head. Diehl fell to the floor, nearly drowning in his own blood.  His girlfriend performed a tracheotomy with a pen before paramedics arrived. Her actions saved his life.
After the assault, he remained in a coma for three weeks. He describes having a near-death experience.
“A voice told me: ‘Son, it’s not your time. Turn around and go home.’  I saluted, spun around and took my first step into consciousness.  I woke up, looked around, and my first thought was ‘Why am I on ‘General Hospital’?’ ”
Diehl lost vision in his right eye. The bullet remains lodged in his skull and will for the rest of his life.
“When I left the hospital, I was devastated. This wasn’t a life. Everything that I had worked hard for had been stricken. One man’s actions did this. I’ve forgiven him. But when he gets out, he can go back to his life.  He got 17 years.  And I got the riverbed.”
Disabled for life
It’s not that he hasn’t tried to leave. Along with his loss of eyesight, Diehl, post-shooting, suffers from seizures.
“I can go a month without one. And then I begin shaking, fiercely, foaming at the mouth, struggling to get air.  I usually wake up in the hospital the next day and everything in my body is sore.”
Like many others at the riverbed with physical health issues, he’s struggled to get financial help through disability.
“I’ve applied unsuccessfully for Social Security benefits nine times. It doesn’t make sense. I’ve got a bullet in my head. I’m blind in my right eye. And I have life-threatening seizures.
“How can they not comprehend that I need Social Security benefits?  I’d love to go back to work but I’m a workman’s comp case waiting to happen.”
He considers what might happen if he found work.
“If I got a job at McDonald’s and had a seizure, I could knock someone into a fryer. If I worked construction, I could fall off a ladder.”
So far, his efforts to get housing have failed. Like everyone else at the riverbed, he’s about to be displaced by a Jan. 22 county-imposed deadline to leave. Diehl doesn’t want to go to a shelter, a place that he says are only good for “three hots and a cot.” To him, it’s not much different than being in jail.
“They tell you when to get up, when to eat, and when to leave.”
Last look
As the helicopter circles Angel Stadium’s Big A, Diehl spots familiar tents.
“A lot of these people who live along the riverbed are my friends.  I look at some of them a lot closer than that; more like family.”
The riverbed has provided more of a home to him than other places he’s lived.
“I know more people in the homeless community than I did ever in any apartment complex.”
Even more people know his dog, Osiris. Diehl named the dog after the Egyptian god of the afterlife, who is associated with transition, regeneration and resurrection.  The dog is his constant companion.
The helicopter flies over a not-so-friendly part of the riverbed, about a football field away from his tent. Diehl says he and his friends stay away from that area.
“In all groups of society, there’s good and there’s bad people. A homeless encampment is no different,” he says. “You have to stay away from the bad and only stay with the good.”
He witnesses criminal activity that bothers him, especially drug abuse.
“There’s a lot of people that lose their way because they get stuck with the drug scene and don’t know how to get out of it.  Drug abuse creates laziness in a lot of people.  The more drugs they do, the more lost they become.”
Pilot Robinson takes one more pass over Diehl’s tent, near Ball Road.
“I know there is a God,” Diehl says. “There’s a purpose for me being here. I think it’s to help fight for the rights of the homeless.”
He’s spoken up at local government meetings.
“I’d like to get my productive life back. I know, sometime, I will be able to get off this riverbed and live a good life.
“I just can never, ever, ever, ever give up.”
Related:
Bicyclist who videotaped Santa Ana River Trail homeless wishes he’d done things differently
Santa Ana River Trail homeless people: Where they are, how they live, what they’re saying
 
Source: Oc Register