LORAIN — An Elyria native who has struggled with homelessness in his own life is donating one-quarter of his profits to Haven House, a homeless shelter in Lorain, this holiday season.

Kevin Salisbury, 43, of Elyria, runs The Christmas Shoppe on Broadway in Lorain and is using his real-life experiences to help others.

“I was a pretty good kid in school,” Salisbury said of his youth. “I planned to study for the ministry.”

Not surprising, considering his conservative Baptist upbringing.

What Salisbury didn’t know, and wouldn’t know for decades, is that he suffers from bipolar disorder, also known as manic-depressive disorder.

It would take homelessness, experimentation with drugs, legal trouble, problems with drinking and several failed marriages before Salisbury would get the diagnosis that would explain why he did the things he did.

As a 19-year-old who worked his way up from dishwasher to manager at Friendly’s Restaurant, he suddenly found himself the father of a very premature baby and wasn’t prepared. Salisbury also was dealing with some legal troubles and found it overwhelming.

He got in his car and drove until he ran out of gas.

Homeless for the first time in Lexington, Ky., Salisbury slept in shelters, under a bridge and “wherever someone would take me in.”

His first thought his first night in a homeless shelter?

“I’m not one of these people,” he said. “I couldn’t believe I was in this situation.”

After his car was stolen, Salisbury hitchhiked to Nashville, where a truck driver hired him to unload his truck. He drove all over the country with the man for about a month before he was once again on his own.

He worked with a carnival for a while, starting out as a ride jock putting the rides together before working his way up to games hawker. Disgusted that many of the games were rigged, Salisbury quit and hitchhiked to Texas to try to find his mother, who’d abandoned the family when he was younger.

“It took me three weeks to get to Texas,” he remembers. “I’d make a little money and then move on. You had to have money in your pocket when you’re hitchhiking or you’ll get arrested for vagrancy.”

He found his mother, and — driven to work and support himself — he found a job on a cattle farm and worked at a radio station at night.

But it didn’t take long for him to get in trouble with the law again, and he lost the radio job for showing up drunk. He met and married a girl within 24 hours. The marriage lasted about three months.

Then the mother of his first child came to stay with him and they had a second child together.

“I went nutso crazy again and left,” Salisbury said, never flinching from the truth. “She came back to Ohio.”

Now an absentee father of two, Salisbury was homeless again but found temporary shelter and a job working at a body shop. He was paid with a case of beer every two days and a place to sleep.

Some more legal troubles and some time in jail still wasn’t rock bottom for Salisbury, but his desire to help others began to show. He got a job with a Christian organization working with troubled teenagers.

“I think you need to learn real life,” he said. “I wouldn’t recommend you do it the way I did.”

Salisbury smiles and laughs a lot about his experiences, but he is brutally honest about his mistakes.

Once again, he found the work and his life overwhelming and “I just split again. I violated probation when I did that. I went back to West Virginia. I had family there and when you’re in trouble, you go to family.”

For a time, Salisbury’s life was stable. He got married, moved to North Carolina and worked as a convenience store manager.

“No matter what, I always worked,” Salisbury said. “Even when I didn’t have a place to live, I had a job of some kind. I got that from Dad, I guess.”

But his second marriage ended, and Salisbury came back to Ohio. He married again but when the family moved to Phoenix, Salisbury again struggled with depression and tried to commit suicide. He was institutionalized and finally got the diagnosis that explained his swings between relative stability and depression.

When Salisbury quit his management job, his third wife left him and Salisbury was once again homeless. He bounced around for a while, often homeless, but found solace by returning to Ohio once again.

Now, with the support of his fiancee, Sarah Hargis, he said he is finally doing what he wants with his life: helping other people.

“Now I get to give back to all the people who have helped me,” he said. “I kept thinking when I was homeless that these people need help. I never realized I was one of them.”

Medication helps keep Salisbury on an even keel. He credits Hargis, whom he met online, and the love they share with helping him finally turn his life around.

“I really haven’t had a serious bout since Sarah,” he said.

As for the two decades Salisbury spent swinging from depression to mania?

“There were a lot of hard times in there,” he acknowledged. “I don’t think I’d trade any of it because I just wouldn’t have learned anything. You couldn’t buy that education. No school will teach what you learn on the streets. … God watched over me. I should have been dead a long time ago.”

Salisbury hopes to put what he’s learned to good use.

“I saw the (homeless) system firsthand, and I think the system needs help,” he said.

But he also saw the good out there, too.

“No matter where I went, someone always seemed to see something in me and helped me,” Salisbury said. “There are always people willing to help you. You run into nice people everywhere. Some are there for not good reasons, but most people in shelters are just down on their luck.”

Once the Christmas season is over, Salisbury hopes to get a grant that will allow him to turn his Christmas store into a cafe that will provide low-price meals with the majority of the proceeds benefiting Haven House.

“I want to provide a place where the homeless can come and eat like a human being,” Salisbury said. “That’s one of the worst things about being homeless. You can’t just sit down at a table and eat. People see you coming on the street and they’ll walk the other way. I want a place where they can come and be treated like human beings.”

Contact Alicia Castelli at 329-7144 or acastelli@chroniclet.com.

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