DETROIT – How many times have you passed a homeless person and wondered: How did they get there? Where is their family? Does their family care? Have they given up on them?
Over the years, Local 4 has done numerous stories on homelessness but rarely from the perspective of the homeless person's family. That's because many times, the family is filled with shame.
One family is pushing the shame aside and sharing its story.
John Schenck's childhood photos look like they could come from almost any family album.
"He was our brother," a family member said.
Schenck's family said he had a paper route as a young kid and loved to ride bikes.
So how did he become a homeless man living on the streets of Detroit?
"I think people sometimes think it's one cataclysmic event," Schenck's sister said. "But it's a series of experiences, a series of choices. I just think it's really easy to blame people for their circumstances."
Schenck's sisters came forward to share their brother's story so others realize homelessness shouldn't be such a dirty secret.
"He's our brother," Elizabeth Lakins said. "He's an uncle. He's a son."
Lakins, 42, of Brighton, is a social worker and a mother of two.
"This is my brother," Mary Kliber said. "He's homeless and he's mentally ill, but he's my brother."
Kliber, 44, is Schenck's other sister. She's a teacher and mother of three from Ypsilanti.
Schenck's sisters admit they've kept their brother a secret to many because they were ashamed.
The sisters said Schenck was an auto mechanic, but he also had schizophrenia.
"My dad got really heavily involved," she said. "He was able to get him back on Social Security. We did get him medical treatment, and he didn't like the side effects of the medication, which is pretty common for people that live with severe mental illness."
"My dad tried to get him to live with him," she said. "(He said) 'I can't live a straight life. I can't live in your neighborhood. They'll run me out like Frankenstein.'"
"We had attempted to have him at Thanksgiving," she said. "And it was just really hard not being medicated, especially with schizophrenia. Sometimes there's paranoia."
The streets of Detroit became Schenck's home. He spent much of his time on his bike, where he found peace.
"It feels comforting to me to know that he had friends and people who looked out for him when we couldn't; when his life made it difficult for us to be together," Kliber said.
"He was a working man, even though he hit rock bottom," Candace Jones, who knew Schenck, said. "But he tried to keep his head up."
"I gave him candles and I gave him blankets," Joanne Warwick said. "One day I come back and the door was off, and John helped me put the board back on."
Neighbors haven't heard Schenck's bike in months. That's because he was hit back in May by an ambulance near the Chrysler Service Drive and Warren. The sisters remember that day, when they rushed to the hospital.
"We decided together that the gift we could give to him was to be with him when he passed," she said. "So we did. We all stood in a circle and we removed the life support. When you lose someone like that, you lose everything they were and everything they weren't."
After Schenck died, there was a funeral, and that's when Kliber had to come clean to her own children and let them know they had an uncle.
"I have to deal with the grief of keeping him from them," Kliber said. "That was my protective mode. And I understand why people are fearful in interacting with the homeless. I did it myself. I protected my own children from their uncle, and that's something I'll have to deal with the rest of my life."
Now the sisters share their brother's story in hopes of changing stereotypes of homeless people and the mentally ill.
"So many people approach me and say, 'Your brother is my brother. I have an uncle like yours,'" she said. "How much it helped them for me to speak about it."
Shenck is also memorialized where he died. There's a white bike symbolizing not only what he loved but also a reminder of how he died while doing what he loved.
"Makes me feel like it mattered," Kliber said. "He mattered and he left his mark."
Schenck's death was ruled an accident by the Wayne County Prosecutor's Office. His family does not plan on filing any kind of lawsuit. All it says is it wants a better respect and an improved system for the homeless and the mentally ill and for other families to let go of the shame.