New law student at UGA takes 530-mile walking trek to spotlight homelessness

The 30-pound backpack Gordon Wayne has carried for the last three weeks is heavy, but it’s not as weighty as the burden he has known for many years.

Wayne, 22, was scheduled to arrive in Athens on Monday after walking some 530 miles from Caroline County, Virginia, to begin taking classes at the University of Georgia School of Law. He made the trek to raise awareness of the plight of the homeless, a situation he found himself in several years ago.

“My back has certainly been hurting many times over this journey, but whenever I think about how much pain I’m in, all I have to do is remember why I’m out here,” said Wayne from Hartwell, where he’d stopped for the day on Saturday. “At least I have belongings that are weighing me down and at least I have food and water to keep myself energized and continuing to move forward. Whenever I think about homelessness, my troubles just go away.”

Wayne, who graduated from Boston College’s Carroll School of Management in May, said that in 2019 his family “essentially fell apart” and he had to begin fending for himself, eventually living out of his car while working 60-hour weeks at the Virginia amusement park Kings Dominion.

“To say the least, I was down bad at the time,” he said. “I was questioning why I was alive and what my purpose was, and I felt no one cared about me. I questioned if I was even human. I questioned everything.

“I tried to drown myself in work. After a while I realized I still had something to give. I didn’t know exactly what that was, but I told myself I’d do everything I could to make something happen to get myself out of that situation.”

While still living in his car, Wayne attended Germanna Community College in Virgina, where he earned an associate degree in just one year. He then was able to enroll at Boston College and made a similar walk from his hometown to Chestnut Hill, averaging 36 miles a day over a 16-day period. When he arrived at Boston College, he experienced a scenario most college students take for granted.

“I felt relieved knowing I’d have a dorm room to sleep in and fresh food to eat and would get medical attention,” he said. “I was excited about that, but on the other hand I couldn’t stop thinking about all the other people who were still dealing with the troubles I had been dealing with.”

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Wayne saw education as his way out of homelessness, which affects some 17 people per 10,000 in the United States. He said studying law seemed like the best way to bring about change.

“Law school was always an idea in my head, and I felt it was the best route for me to take to accomplish my goal of working to end homelessness in America,” said Wayne, who worked two on-campus jobs and had two internships while at Boston College. “The skillset to deal with the system is something only someone with a law degree could understand. I knew I was going to do that early on in Boston and I started preparing for it in my junior year.

“I believe that a legal education was the last skill I needed to begin making my most practical impact on the issue. I know I’m not going to end homelessness on my own. But I want to do as much as I can. And I firmly believe I need a legal education to accomplish that.”

Wayne said he had several law schools in mind to attend but that UGA “let me know early on they wanted me to come here” by offering him a full merit-based scholarship, with a housing stipend. He has arranged to move into an apartment near campus and expects to take out a small loan for essentials because he said, “They don’t want us working our first year in law school.”

Walking some 27 miles per day to arrive at UGA, Wayne said he did not have a good plan when he walked to Boston College. He was better prepared for his trip to Athens, which began July 11. He typically walked from 11 p.m. until 10 a.m. each day to avoid the heat.

Suffice it to say, his feet are not in the best shape.

“My feet are blistered, but not as badly as last time,” he said. “... I’m not going to be a foot model anytime soon.”

Wayne has received much in the way of support along his way, most notably from the National Alliance to End Homelessness. He documented his walk from Virginia to Athens in a series of videos on the Alliance’s You Tube channel, www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4lMN8lqLL0.

As he closed in on the final 50 miles of his walk, Wayne said that even with as far as he has come, he is just getting started.

“I’m thinking it’s time for the real work to begin,” said Wayne, who added he planned to focus on “real estate with a public-interest mindset” in law school. “While I’m very excited to be able to inspire people in this way, it’s not a practical solution to end homelessness. I feel it’s my calling to make that happen and by going to law school, that’s where I’ll learn how to.”

Wayne has established a GoFundMe account at endhomelessness.org/walk to raise funds and awareness for the National Alliance to End Homelessness.

This article originally appeared on Augusta Chronicle: 530 mile walk to end homelessness taken on by UGA Law student