Kris Fair was just closing up for the night when he heard the knock.
It was August, barely a week since The Frederick Center had moved into its new space on West Patrick Street — a red brick building with huge windows and two LGBTQ+ Pride flags fluttering from the roof. Fair, the center’s executive director, ran down the stairs and unlocked the front door, but by the time he poked his head out, the person who had knocked was already halfway down the street. He was clutching a basket.
“Hey, Kris here,” Fair remembers calling out. “Do you need something?”
Immediately, Fair said, the man burst into tears.
The man had just become homeless, he told Fair. He was gay; his husband had left him and taken everything.
