One Monday morning in Ontario, Calif., optometrist Harvey Yamamoto and his wife pulled up to his office and stopped cold. Police cars, with lights flashing, surrounded his building.
“We walked inside with two police escorts with guns drawn,” Dr. Yamamoto says. “It was an awful scene—each room was ransacked to the hilt. Projectors were ripped from the walls. A new computerized eye chart had its theft chain cut through. Laptops were stolen. All of our frames were gone.”
Dr. Yamamoto instructed his staff that, despite all the damage, they were to keep working, business as usual. Mrs. Yamamoto went to work restocking the dispensary with whatever frames had been locked away. Dr. Yamamoto rolled up his sleeves and got one exam room back into working order.
All the while, they examined and dispensed to patients who had appointments that day. “We didn’t miss a beat,” he says.
By nine o’clock that night, weary and exhausted—but with a new, reinforced back door—Dr. and Mrs. Yamamoto closed up shop. As they pulled out of the driveway, “We both spotted a man and woman huddled in the parking lot with two large suitcases. They looked tired and hungry.” The man and woman were clearly homeless.
Dr. Yamamoto turned to his wife. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” he asked her. Dr. and Mrs. Yamamoto went over to homeless couple and asked if they were looking for a safe place to sleep.
“We offered them to stay in our parking lot behind our office. My wife reached into her purse and gave them $20 for food,” Dr. Yamamoto says. “I gave them my cellphone asked them to watch our place and to call the police if they saw anybody looking suspicious. They agreed.”
After that, the couple camped out every night behind Dr. Yamamoto’s office. “I built them two large lockboxes to store their belongings during the daytime. We supplied them with water, electricity, TV, a stove, and more. They were very comfortable and felt very secure camping out behind our office.”
Yet one day, the police came by and arrested the couple for loitering. “I spoke with the police and told them that I gave them permission to camp at our building,” Dr. Yamamoto says. “The police said, ‘No way.’ But the entire block became angry, and they all called the police and told them that they too wanted the homeless couple to stay at our building so that their buildings would be protected as well.”
After a few months, the husband had begun to receive his veteran’s benefits. The wife applied for welfare and was accepted. With this modest income, “we helped them purchase a large, 24-foot motor home so that the police would stop harassing them,” Dr. Yamamoto says. “Now they move about town, but return every night and park in the parking lot to keep an eye on our building. They haven’t forgotten our kindness, so they continue to keep an eye on our office.”
Dr. Yamamoto is a firm believer in the golden rule. “It turned out to be a win-win situation for us. It goes to illustrate that one kind deed can turn into another.”
Postscript: Right before Thanksgiving, Dr. Yamamoto discovered a tent on his roof. “I went to investigate and found it belonged to some other homeless people. My staff encouraged us to call the police to have them removed. I replied, ‘Hey, what if it was your mom or dad looking for a warm, safe place to bed down at night?’ Needless to say, the tent is still up there. We’ve been having freezing nights this month, so if our roof can provide a haven of comfort for a few people, then they are welcome to stay.”
Besides, he says, “I sleep better at night knowing that we have a couple of people camping on our roof to keep the real intruders from breaking in.”