Outpouring helps Pete, Buster get home in Delaware

Pete Buchmann is counting the days until Monday. That's the day that he leaves the homeless life behind and reunites under his own roof with his best friend, Buster.

In just under a month, Buchmann has gone from living at the Sunday Breakfast Mission and walking 5 miles each day to visit Buster at Faithful Friends Animal Society to having an apartment, a job, a vehicle and a bank account.

"I can't thank everyone enough," Buchmann said. "The words 'thank you' aren't big enough. Buster and I are going to be together again."

This reversal of fortune started with an outpouring of support by News Journal readers who embraced Buchmann and Buster in a November story on delawareonline.com.

It described how Buchmann rode the economic downturn from full-time employment to part time and then nothing. In July, he found himself unable to pay his rent and moved into a two-man tent with Buster, a 9-year-old Rottweiler-boxer mix. After a week he realized that lifestyle was not good for Buster and contacted Faithful Friends. Executive Director Jane Pierantozzi was so impressed with his devotion to Buster and his willingness to work that they agreed to take Buster until Pete could get back on his feet.

Offers of jobs, clothing, bus passes and other gifts for Buchmann and Buster poured in and didn't let up. So much so that Pierantozzi enlisted help from Faithful Friends supporter and local businesswoman Theresa Morrissey. While Pierantozzi responded to hundreds of emails and phone calls, Morrissey documented all the offers and helped Buchmann write a résumé and prepare for interviews.

One reader started a GoFundMe online account. When it reached $2,000 two weeks ago, she gave Buchmann a check and was preparing to shut the account down.

"Then the story went viral, and we started getting calls from not just around this country, but from Canada, England, Scotland, Australia, Italy and China," Pierantozzi said.

"Once it went global, the fund went from $2,000 up to over $30,000. I think people all over the world were imagining what they would do if they were in Pete's situation and forced to give up their pet," she said.

"This is really a love story that has evoked a tremendous response around the world. It has inspired people. It has given them a feeling of hope and a belief that there are good people who will go the extra mile for their pets, and that there are good people out there willing to help."

At a special ceremony Thursday, Buchmann will receive a check for more than $35,000 raised by the online fund, a nest egg he says is going straight into the bank. He'll also accept the keys to a donated used truck and receive the keys to his new apartment in Newark.

"When I was walking to the shelter every day, I would talk to God and ask for a place to live, not a big place but just someplace with running water and a shower, so I could have Buster back," Buchmann said. "I have to acknowledge the high power that has put me and Buster back together again."

The apartment comes with six months of free rent courtesy of the Apartment Angels Transitional Housing Project, operated under the umbrella of the Delaware Apartment Association. Every June and July five apartments are provided free for six months to individuals or families in financial need, said Kevin Wolfgang, president and CEO of Evergreen Apartments, which is providing Bachmann's new home.

Wolfgang started the program in 2010 when he was president of the state association. Since then, it has provided $300,000 in housing for the homeless.

"This is my passion project," Wolfgang said. "Michele Quaranta, who is association executive for the Delaware Apartment Association, sent me an email after she read the story about Pete and Buster, and asked me if we could help them out. I said yes."

Applicants for apartments go through the same screening process as other residents, but leniency is given for past financial troubles, he said. Information can be found on the Delaware Apartment Association website.

The day after Buchmann and Buster move into their new apartment, which volunteers are working to furnish, he will start his new job as a fire inspector at Wayman Fire Protection.

"I am so grateful I can't express it," Buchmann said. "But this isn't all about me. It's about Faithful Friends, which has a match challenge going to raise $175,000 to care for all the other animals here. If I had had to put Buster in a kill shelter and he had been killed, I would have been so depressed for a very, very long time. His being here gave me hope."

It's also, Buchmann said, about changing attitudes about homelessness.

"A lot of people won't hire someone who is homeless, but there are a lot of smart people at the shelter who want to get back on their feet."

The Rev. Tom Laymon, who runs the Sunday Breakfast Mission, said that although the shelter is housing as many as 300 men, women and children a day, six times what it did 11 years ago, no one will be turned away.

"We want to help the other Petes out there," he said. "We really believe that in order to truly offer homeless men and women and families help, they've got to have a place of shelter, of comfort, of safety and a place of health. And, it's got to be a place that, as I say, Jesus is on the floor, the ceiling and not just coming out of our mouth.

"It encouraged Pete, and he worked hard to make it all happen. We're grateful that Pete is getting reset and restarted, and we're happy that we had a small part in that."

Contact Deborah Lucas at (302) 324-2852 or dlucas@delawareonline.com. Find her on Facebook at facebook.com/deblucas and on Twitter at #DelPets.