February 20, 2020

How this York man rose from homelessness to military service and a real estate business

Published by Kim Strong, York Daily Record

Fred Walker learned how to survive at a young age.

His mother was a drug addict who didn’t come home for days at a time. His father wasn’t around.

Three younger half-brothers became the responsibility he shouldered before he was 10 years old. 

"I always worried about them coming up with a mother on drugs," said Walker, now a York businessman. "My mom would be gone for days, for a week at a time. How do you feed your brothers?"

He vowed early in his life that he wouldn't follow her path, a trail of alcoholism to marijuana use to hard drugs.

But homelessness, hunger and an unstable home life tested him.

He would rely on the kindness of a woman in Philadelphia he refers to as his Godmom, and her guidance. She led him toward a life story he could write himself.

'The only way out of this life'

In his teen years in North Philadelphia, Walker grew so desperate for money at one point that he stole a car. A puny kid behind the wheel of a pickup truck, he headed to a chop shop for some cash. The cops spotted him instantly, and he landed in juvenile detention.

"It showed me consequence, number one," he said. "It turned my life around. It showed me I never want to be in this situation."

It also gave him a chance to be a good student in the school residence program, to play basketball, and to not worry about home and the next meal.

"I could be a kid," he said.

But when he got out, his mother didn't want him at home. "I think it was easier (for her) to have less responsibility," he said. Eventually, a friend's mother took him in, gave him a bed and helped him graduate from high school.

"I knew the only way out of this life is education," he said. "Even being homeless at points in my life as a kid, I went to school. People (at school) would say, 'You're dirty. You stink."

They didn't know he lived in abandoned buildings at times.

When Sharon Franks-Govans, "Godmom," took him in, he was a young teenager. Her son, Julius Franks, knew about Walker's situation through a friend, so they gave him a bed for a few days. He stayed for years. 

"He was the nicest kid ever. He was just less fortunate than I was at that particular time," said Franks, who is the same age as Walker. Raised for years together, most people now think they are actually brothers.

"Along the way, he has always been a beacon of light for his family, too, because he always tried to uplift them, tried to bring them out of their predicaments. Some of it worked out, some of it failed, but he never, ever turned his back on them," Franks said. "Everything he's done and built for York, he tried to do for his own family."

Franks-Govans had been a nurse in the military, and service to country was a path she encouraged for both Walker and her son.

"She gave me direction and purpose," Walker said. "You go through this turbulent life, so you have to make decisions. I made a decision to go into the military."

Before entering in the Army, though, he needed to connect to a broken relationship in his life.

Father figure

The interior surfaces have been refreshed with new flooring and a resurfaced bar as the new look of Skillet2Plate evolves at the former Stockade Tavern. The building’s owner, Fred Walker, leans on the unfinished bar.

At 18, Walker sought out his dad, a man who hadn't been around through his childhood.

He found that he couldn't relate to him. His father had never learned to read and hadn't seen much of the world. Conversations were stale, he said. 

The father figure in his life was Morris Gandy, one of Walker's stepfathers, a Vietnam veteran. 

"He was so proud of me as a stepdad," he said. "I didn't have a father there, but I had someone who I could talk to."

Walker's mother died in 1998, shot in her apartment in Philadelphia, still an unsolved murder, while Walker was in Germany with the Army. But Gandy threw a protective wing over all the children in his life until he died.

Years later, Walker named his business after him, Gandy Real Estate.

Walker and his half-brother, Dale Roane, had been very close growing up, but the shadow of their mother's life moved over Roane. He became a drug addict as well.

"As kids growing up, we were very, very close," Walker said.

When Roane got out of jail in 2018, Walker tried to help him by calling in a favor. Walker was on the board of directors with a recovery center and paid his brother's way. 

Roane never showed up. Then, he went missing.

"I would hear stories about him being a panhandler," he said. They all tried to find him, but it was fruitless.

He died last year as a homeless drug addict in the Kensington neighborhood of Philadelphia, described by the New York Times as "the epicenter of Philadelphia's opioid crisis." 

Walker had buried many family members, but this was different.

"It was a shocking moment of my life, to see my brother in that space, remembering all those moments that me and him had," Walker said. "The decisions in a person's life can end up in this manner." 

Making a home

After 10 years in the Army, Walker taught college classes in Washington, D.C., but it was an expensive place to live. He thought he could "live like a king" if he moved north, so he did.

The home he chose was near Mount Wolf. The boy who was homeless at times in his life had found a place where he could see the Susquehanna River from his back door. Now 44, he has lived there about 15 years with his two daughters, 19 and 17, and his wife, Janique Washington-Walker, assistant executive director of the Children's Aid Society. 

In York, he plugged into the community by running a music store downtown and managing some entertainers, booking venues and traveling with them. While he still has a hand in that, he's focused on real estate now. 

This week, he can be found at one of his properties, 30 Eberts Lane, where he is helping a tenant get his restaurant off the ground. Skillet2Plate Soul Bistro is expected to open this week under the ownership of Terence Days. Juan Cruz, formerly of the Left Bank, will be the chef.

It's the same place where Walker once took a troubled young man to show what hard work can create.

"You know who owns this? I own this entire block," Walker told him.

Among his many volunteer efforts, Walker is a leader with The Movement, a resource for city residents, connecting people in need with solutions. People write Facebook posts looking for housing - or even a prayer. Just recently, someone donated a truck to The Movement for residents to use for moving furniture. 

"We're a helping hand up for people who are in difficult situations," Walker said.

He knows there are struggles behind every door. The rest of the world can't see other people's troubles, just like they hadn't seen his.

But that childhood - now decades ago - doesn't leave a person's soul. He still has fears.

He said: "Those things haunt me to this day: not having, being broke and being homeless."

It drives him forward - along with all the people he takes under his wing.