Humiliated at McDonald's, Homeless Man Finds a Friend in Oak Forest Realtor

A realtor from Oak Forest is raising money for a homeless Detroit man who was victimized in a mean trick pulled by a fast-food worker who threw water in his face after luring him to the drive-through window with an offer of a free sandwich.

Christine Ciana Calabrese, a realtor with Classic Realty Group, said on a GoFundMe crowd-funding page that she’s raising money to pre-pay for an apartment and help the man who was taunted and humiliated, Willie Payne Jr., get back on his feet.

“I was virtually speechless. How cruel of a human being can you possibly be?” Calabrese said in a release.

She plans to deliver the money raised to Payne and videotape the transfer of money to show donors her gesture is genuine. She intends to show Payne that his situation does not have to be permanent, and that there is hope.

“Homelessness is a tricky dilemma, kind of like the proverbial Chicken and the Egg: you want to immediately find the homeless employment, but they need a place to sleep, eat, bathe and do laundry—which is exactly what these funds are designed to address, short-term,” Calabrese said.

The McDonald’s employee behind the trick has been fired, the franchise owner Wise Finley said in a statement to the media.

“This type of behavior is not tolerated in my organization,” Finley said. “I expect my employees to treat everyone with dignity and respect.”

By Thursday morning, $600 of the $1,000 goal had been raised.

“A support system will be of critical importance for this man” Calabrese states. She goes on to add, “I’m confident that despite the malice I witnessed on that video, there is more benevolence in the world, and we will be able to make something wonderful come from this deplorable incident.”

—reporting by Beth Dalbey and Lauren Traut