John Daniels is disabled, stricken with bipolar disorder.

He receives $668 every month from Social Security. Through Section 8 vouchers, he pays $174 monthly for a small walk-up apartment in Lewiston. He’s on MaineCare and Medicare. His food stamps total $107 per month.

It’s been like this for Daniels since 1986, when fellow patients at Tri-County Mental Health convinced him to “go get his check,” after nine years of struggle. He was an employment nightmare since 1977, when he was diagnosed bipolar. Daniels would walk away from jobs, never to return, after an episode.

Public assistance saved his life.

Now, some 20 years later, Daniels wants to say “thank you.”

“I live in a pretty damned good country,” he says, his voice quavering. “I want the taxpayers to realize how much they’re helping me and other people. They deserve the thanks. Taxpayers of Lewiston and Auburn should know how grateful I am, for them.”

Not a typical sentiment. But Daniels, 53, considers himself an atypical recipient.

“My ultimate goal would be to work full-time and be off the benefits,” he says. “[But] it looks like I’ll be on them the rest of my life. This is the way it is…I’m unfortunate to have these problems.”

Daniels’ four-room apartment is spartan. His bookshelves are made from cinderblocks. His couch and chair are threadbare, his decorations inexpensive feline-themed posters, like those often hung in elementary classrooms.

Two cats, black Frisky and white-and-brown Mittens, share his home. Daniels has three photos of Mittens in various poses, which he took himself, adorning his living room wall.

Few visitors see them. A Lewiston native, Daniels has family around the city, but they gather only on holidays. His life is largely trips with providers and one friend with a car, the odd jaunt downtown to the 12-Hour Club to play cribbage, attending church, and doctors’ visits.

He has no driver’s license. It was suspended, he says, on doctor’s orders after a collision last year.

Daniels has sought part-time work since last March. His last job was as a taxi driver. A vocational program is helping him find job interviews. No luck yet. It bothers him. “I’ve been a worker my whole life,” says Daniels.

When Daniels has a breakdown, he disconnects with reality. He can go weeks without caring for himself or his home. It’s one reason he has housekeeping, although he’s unsure who pays for it. Maybe Medicare, he says.

“You see how clean my apartment is?” he asks a recent visitor, motioning across his barren kitchen: one table, an overflowing ashtray, some papers, a few spiritual postings, a refrigerator topped by a medley of medications, and a yellow sign that reads “Angels at Work.” “I called (the housekeepers) two or three times – they’re an agency – and thanked them. I’m just overwhelmed by gratitude.”

Housekeeping isn’t his only household amenity. His small television is connected to a Direct TV satellite receiver. His two-year-old black Dell desktop computer is connected to the Internet. He has home and cellular phones.

“People might say why do you need all that stuff,” says Daniels. “When you sit on the house with no phone, no TV – I don’t know about anybody else – but I would have a hard time.”

The cellular phone, he adds, isn’t a luxury. For someone like him it’s a necessity, as his providers need to reach him, and he them, in case of an emergency, especially if he’s away from home.

Then there’s the cigarettes.

About two packs a day, he says. “Native” brand, a discount smoke – a $15 per-carton bargain – manufactured by the Mohawk tribe on its reservation in Upstate New York. In the course of conversation, Daniels keeps one burning. He’s tried to quit. Like the job hunt, no luck yet.

Daniels never married, and has no children.

What he has is his apartment, benefits, providers, some cribbage partners and his cats. For many, his life would be considered meager. For Daniels, after two decades of living it, he feels amazed at having so much.

Ten percent of his money, he says, goes to his church, the First Assembly of God. In the past, his spare time went toward volunteering at nursing homes. He would pick people nobody ever visited, and visit with them.

He remembers, decades ago, looking down at welfare recipients. This has changed. “Going down, and coming back eliminated my self-righteousness,” he says. “Suffering and pain tend to make you more compassionate.”

“I couldn’t pay the rent on my own. I guess I could eat, but it would be a mess. I couldn’t live without some of the benefits,” he says. “I don’t think I’ve earned [them]. I’ve gotten to the point where I’m eligible for the benefits.”

And taxpayers should know he, John Daniels, for one is truly grateful.

“I’m sure the taxpayers will feel good [hearing] about a disabled guy, who every time he uses his benefits, he thinks this money is coming from the taxpayers,” he says.

“I don’t forget that.”

Anthony Ronzio is the Editorial Page Editor for the Sun Journal. He can be reached at [email protected], or 1-800-782-0759, ext. 2285.