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“Here we are on the fuzzy border between eccentricity and incompetence,” writes Dr. Douglas Uzzell after a psychiatric examination of David Castellano, the subject of my Urban Explorer column this week.

You might know Castellano as the rotund man on Tampa’s Sheldon Road surrounded by signs claiming he won the Pennsylvania Lottery. But spend a few minutes with the 55-year-old homeless veteran and you’ll find out his lottery story is just the beginning; he says the FBI and FCC are after him, too.

Turns out (not surprisingly), the Pennsylvania Lottery has nary a record about Castellano winning in 1981, nor do they have any record of the man Castellano claims stole his ticket.

But that doesn’t mean he hasn’t been dealt a tough hand. I obtained court records earlier this week (unfortunately not in time for deadline) that shed a little more light on Castellano’s tumultuous life.

Castellano, a Vietnam-era veteran, has been homeless for the last seven years. He used to sleep in a tent behind the K-Mart on West Waters Avenue. That’s when an employee of a nearby bank took notice of him and contacted Lutheran Services, who gained emergency temporary guardianship over Castellano in 2000. A preliminary psychiatric evaluation at Baylife Acute Care Clinic revealed signs of schizophrenia and psychosis.

For the next two months, Lutheran Services social workers worked to gain full guardianship of him. They closed some of Castellano’s bank accounts, took control of his large savings and attempted to place him in an assisted living facility for the mentally disabled. But Castellano resisted all the way, eventually walking out of the facility. He wanted to remain homeless in his tent off of Waters Avenue. The case went to court.

At a June 2000 hearing, a judge honored Castellano’s wishes to remain homeless and control his own affairs. The court cited a Florida statute that allows even “the most obviously mentally-ill person who is capable of surviving safely in freedom by himself” to live where he chooses.

Afterward, Lutheran Services billed Castellano over $4,000 for taking care of him, charging $60 an hour for phone calls and trips to the woods around Waters Avenue looking for him. But after Castellano protested the charges at his next hearing, the court ruled the amount was excessive and reduced the amount to $2,000. (Castellano is still angry about that.)

After the hearings, Castellano returned to Tampa’s streets, moving to the area around West Hillsborough Avenue where he remains today.

This whole story represents a particular problem facing homeless advocates: how do you help those who don’t want help?

“By his own admission, he has never been successful at making a living,” writes Dr. Uzzell in a 2000 psychiatric report prepared for Castellano. “On the other hand, I believe that he would probably deteriorate very rapidly if he were too severely restrained or managed. While he is presently the victim of his own poor judgment, emotional distress and lack of structure, he could easily become a man ‘killed by kindness.’

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