Photo: GoFundMe
A college student's viral journey with helping a D.C. homeless man "transform his life" has seemingly come to an end.
TikToker @hustlanani, who was later identified as Sanai Graden, went viral earlier this year after documenting her journey helping a homeless man.
In her first video, Sanai said she was vlogging her trip to the grocery store when the man, identified as Alonzo Douglas Hebron, asked if she could buy him tea.
The college student noted that Alonzo didn't ask for money, so she offered for him to join her on her grocery store trip. During their walk, the man revealed that he was homeless, had no family, and was diagnosed with prostate cancer. Sanai said Alonzo, who she called "Unc," told her that he needed his medication refilled for the pain he was experiencing.
Sanai was praised on social media for going above and beyond for Alonzo as she took him to multiple pharmacies to have his prescription filled, made a stop at Starbucks for tea, checked him into a hotel room, and gave him extra money so he could eat.
Millions of TikTok viewers flocked to a GoFundMe started by the college student to raise money for the homeless man to provide him with a "place to live, new clothes, shoes, a bank account, doctor's appointments, a phone, etc."
Over $400,000 was raised before reports surfaced in March of Alonzo's past criminal record. In a series of TikTok videos, Sanai revealed that she started losing contact with Alonzo following the reports. The college student said Alonzo became evasive, frivolously used gift cards she gave him for food, and lost the cell phone she purchased for him.
“I really did try to help him,” Sanai said in a recent video. “I tried to transform his whole life. But sometimes when you want something for somebody, they may not want that for themselves.”
Sanai said she decided to refund the money to donors of her GoFundMe. GoFundMe confirmed that at the “request of the organizer, donors have been refunded," per the Washington Post.
“Since the fundraiser’s launch, GoFundMe remained fully committed to helping deliver the funds raised to Mr. Hebron, just as the donors intended,” the company said in a statement. “However, without the cooperation of the organizer or the beneficiary, delivering these funds to Mr. Hebron has not been possible.”
Sanai further explained that she had encouraged Alonzo to seek identification, but he never followed up on the steps to do so. “Every time I asked about the ID, there was an excuse,” she said.
The TikToker said Alonzo stopped contacting her and she fell into a depression and was unable to focus on her internship.
“All I wanted was to get him housing, get him medical care,” Sanai said. “There’s only so much I can do. I cannot force him to do certain things. At the end of the day, he’s grown.”
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