Editor's note: This story was updated to correct the date of Mel Woods' death.
In 2018, a neat partnership formed between Eden Village and Drury University’s Hammons School of Architecture, one in which fifth-year architecture students designed and built a tiny home for someone who was disabled and chronically homeless.
That first home was built for a young man named Mel Woods.
Woods, then 22, was deaf and sleeping behind the Rare Breed Youth Services building in downtown Springfield. He had aged out of foster care and had been homeless for about four years.
Traci Sooter, the director of Drury’s Design-Build program and a professor, recalls vividly the moment Woods first climbed the stairs to his new home on a very cold Dec. 21, 2018.
“That day, I watched Mel turn the doorknob on his house to walk in to spend the night there for the very first time in his life,” Sooter said. “It hit me: that young man was never going to have to sleep outside on the ground again. And I ugly cried right in front of everybody.”
Sooter followed Woods into the house, and Woods did something he would continue to do almost every time he saw Sooter after that day.
Woods, a husky fellow standing 6-feet-5, picked up the much-smaller Sooter in a bear hug and spun her around.
“I’ve never had anybody hug me like that,” she said. “Every time I went over there to see him or pick him up for a dentist appointment or anything, he would pick me up off the ground and spin me. I mean, to have somebody be that excited to see you is just really, really special.”
Woods died in that tiny home built by Drury architecture students on June 13. He was 27.
Linda Brown, co-founder of the Gathering Tree (the nonprofit that operates the Eden Villages), said that while she is heartbroken and stunned about Woods’ death, she takes comfort in knowing he died in his home and not under a bridge.
Memorial service July 6
Over the years, Traci Sooter became sort of an “adopted mom” to Mel Woods. She is planning a memorial service for Woods on July 6 at 5 p.m. at Donnie Wayne Wagoner Memorial Garden at Eden Village I, 2801 E. Division St. The public is welcome to come. Instead of flowers, Sooter suggested a donation to Eden Village.
Former Drury students recall forming bond with Woods
Sooter’s Design-Build program has continued to partner with the Gathering Tree. So far, architecture students have designed and built two additional campers and two sleeping cottages for the Revive 66 Campground.
But building that first home for Woods will likely always be the most meaningful of the Design-Build charity projects. Because Woods was about the same age as the students working on his home, they all became rather attached to Woods.
“What I remember the most is his smile and his laugh,” said Meagan Gerlemann, a graduate of Drury’s architecture program. “I wish he could hear his laugh because it was beautiful.”
Gerlemann, who is now with Dake Wells Architecture in Springfield, recalled how Woods would often come to the Drury campus just to hang out and help. She and Woods would communicate by typing notes back and forth using their cell phones.
“There were sometimes when I would stop what I was doing because I saw that he was just kind of sitting by himself,” Gerlemann said. “We would just talk about what I was doing at school, talk about what he was up to. And just some of those moments where it was just me and him talking back and forth, it was really nice.”
“He was such a good person, and he had a big heart,” she said. “I also really remember his big bear hugs. And he was a big guy, so he would just kind of engulf you. You can just feel his love for other people in those hugs.”
Drury students spent 16 weeks creating home
The students spent the first eight weeks of the semester working on the design and made multiple presentations to Woods, just as they would their future architecture clients. They interviewed Woods and spent time with him and customized the design for Woods’ wants and needs. The students then had the final eight weeks to construct the home with help from local contractors.
“Once we really got into the design process and learned about Mel and what he’d been through,” Gerlemann said, “we just really kind of put our hearts into it and wanted to do the best for him.”
Despite being deaf, Woods had no trouble at all communicating and connecting with the architecture students, according to Katie Kliethermes, a Drury grad who is now with Torgerson Design in Ozark.
Kliethermes recalled how Woods often told jokes using sign language. Woods was so animated both with his facial expressions and body language that a person didn’t need to know sign language to get the punchline.
“They got the gist with everything else he was doing,” she said. “He was always smiling, always had a joke to tell.”
Kliethermes also recalled that day when Woods first saw the completed home.
“It was so emotional,” she said. “It was so exciting to see his reaction and just the pure shock and excitement.”
Brandon Biskup, now with Kinetic Design + Development of Springfield, is another Drury grad who also remembers move-in day back in 2018.
“It was really cool to see just how much of an impact something like that has,” Biskup said. “He was just so incredibly grateful. It was really special.
“He was just a really lovable guy. I mean, he was one of those people that had a really hard past, and he’d been through some tough times,” Biskup said. “It was really incredible to see just how happy and grateful he was for everything we were doing for him and just happy to be involved.”
An avid gamer who secretly struggled
Kelbi Schlueter is the community coordinator at Eden Village I, where Woods' tiny home was located. Schlueter said Woods was the youngest resident at Eden Village and that he had a “pretty traumatic childhood.”
Woods told the Springfield News-Leader in 2018 that he grew up in California and Wisconsin and came to Missouri when he was 15. His father was an alcoholic and his mother died by suicide, he said. Woods lived at the Boys and Girls Town in Columbia and Springfield before becoming homeless.
When he first came to Eden Village, it didn’t take long for Schlueter to “figure out he was just like the biggest teddy bear.”
Woods never had any sort of substance use issues, Schlueter said, but he was definitely addicted to gaming. “Call of Duty” was his favorite game, friends say.
He didn’t get great wi-fi in his home, so Schlueter let him set up a corner in the community building where he could play video games.
Schlueter and Sooter, who both had frequent, if not daily, contact with Woods, said they had no idea he was struggling with his mental health and depression. They thought it was odd when he removed all his video games from the community room, but they didn’t realize what Woods was planning to do.
Woods died by suicide a few days later.
“He was just love and light. Sometimes I think when people pass away, people romanticize how somebody was,” Schlueter said. “That is not what this is. He was truly, truly just so loving. So, it never even crossed my mind that he was in the dark place he was. His death came as just a horrific shock.”
Friend: Woods must have been in ‘tremendous pain’
Sooter said Woods sometimes talked about wanting to see a therapist, so she offered many times to help make an appointment. He just never followed through, she said, and kept putting on a happy face.
Sooter believes Woods’ childhood trauma was likely just too painful for him to talk through and relive with a therapist.
“There may have been another trigger that I’m unaware of,” she said. “But, I just think he couldn't stand it anymore, thinking about it all the time.”
“I talked to him every day leading up to the moment when he started planning it. And then he went radio silent on me,” Sooter said. “He very masterfully kind of fooled everybody and did that. He must have been in tremendous pain.”
How to get help
If you know someone in emotional distress or with suicidal thoughts, please encourage them to call the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, available 24/7 by simply dialing 988.
For TTY Users: Use your preferred relay service or dial 711 then 988.
Or, go online to chat at – https://988lifeline.org/chat/
STORY CONTINUES BELOW:
Life lessons, thanks to Mel Woods
Those who spoke to the Hauxeda about Mel Woods shared some meaningful life lessons they learned from the gentle giant.
1. Take time to really see people. (click to read more)
According to Traci Sooter, the only reason Mel Woods stood out among the hundreds of unsheltered people in Springfield and was selected to receive a customized home built by Drury students was because a woman named Tobey Wilkerson just happened to notice him at the Rare Breed years ago. Wilkerson’s parents were deaf, Sooter said, so she recognized something about the way Woods moved and walked that told Wilkerson the young man was deaf.
“She knew how to recognize that. And the difference between her just having a conversation and seeing him,” Sooter said. “And she took action. That’s what we all need to do is try to see people for who they are.
“Especially our unsheltered community members,” she continued. “Because what you really need to see is the little boy and the little girl that didn’t get rescued in time. They didn’t recover from their childhood trauma and aren’t quite ready to receive the help that is available to them.”
2. Good people are out there. (click to read more)
Woods also taught Sooter there are mostly good people in the world.
“I asked him, ‘How can you be so loving and nice and sweet? … How do you do that with all you’ve been through?’” Sooter recalled. He replied: “Traci, I am positive there are more good people in the world than there are bad.”
“I was like, ‘Ok, then I’m gonna believe that, too,’” Sooter said.
3. Everyone has a story, and anyone can wind up without a home. (click to read more)
Like the other students, Katie Kliethermes had no significant relationships with homeless people before meeting Woods. She learned a lot from Woods.
“Everyone has a story. And you never know until you ask and you talk to someone,” she said she learned from Woods. “Don’t always assume the worst, because sometimes (a person’s) situation just turns on a dime. And you don’t know — that could be you in the next year.”
4. Unsheltered people are human beings with dreams and potential. They deserve respect. (click to read more)
Brandon Biskup, too, said he also didn’t have much experience being around someone who was unsheltered before meeting Woods. Biskup found Woods to be inspirational.
“They’re not different. Everybody has that aspect and that potential,” he said. “There’s just unique circumstances how they got there. They are human, just like anybody else.
“The little chance that I had to interact with him at that time definitely left a big impression,” Biskup said. “I had that opportunity to see just how impactful he could be and really encouraging other people, to really get out there and be open to engaging with more of the unsheltered population and treat them as everyday people. They deserve that respect just like anybody else.”
5. You don’t know what people are going through. Be kind. (click to read more)
Kelbi Schlueter and Sooter, two friends to Woods who saw him on a regular basis, said they had no idea Woods was struggling with his mental health or depression.
“He was so loving and so seemingly happy,” Schlueter said. “There was obviously so much more going on with him. It’s just a reminder that you just don’t know what people are going through. I want to try to remember that moving forward: You just want to always be kind and be loving.
“Hopefully, this causes all of us to be a little bit more loving and a little bit kinder.”
6. Unsheltered people aren’t scary. Treat them as such. (click to read more)
This one comes directly from Woods. Back in 2018, he asked this reporter for her notebook because he wanted to say something directly to the readers. This is what he wrote:
“Keep in mind that homeless people aren’t ‘scary’ or anything. There are so many stories similar to mine. And some people just fell in with the wrong crowd early, etc. So, try to treat them like you would a normal person.”
Woods’ death difficult for his neighbors
Eden Village I and II are tiny home communities for disabled, chronically homeless people. They are projects of the Gathering Tree, a Springfield-based nonprofit. A groundbreaking ceremony was held for Eden Village III in November 2022.
Eden Villages house individuals who have experienced homelessness for at least a year, often while struggling with a disabling condition. Residents, most of whom are on disability, pay their own rent at $325 a month. There is no deposit and utilities are included.
Woods was among the first to move to Eden Village I.
Schlueter spoke to the Daily Citizen last week while looking out a window at the community building.
“We’ve had a lot of death here. It’s kind of part of it,” she said. “Homelessness is so hard that their life expectancy tends to be shorter because of living in survival mode for so long. But this one just hits different. We’re having a little bit of a hard time.
“The thing with Mel is there will be this huge, huge void,” Schlueter continued. “Even as I’m talking to you, I’m watching Miss Nancy, who’s our oldest resident, who is also deaf. And I look at her walking across, and she’s grieving really hard right now.”
Schlueter said Nancy and Woods had a “funny” relationship, one where they were very connected and close, but also got into a few squabbles over the years.
“Seeing her walking by herself, it just really makes me sad,” Schlueter said. “I think after the shock of his death subsides a little bit, we’re going to be left with this memory of him and his love. I really do believe that love is eternal.
“And I really do believe that Mel left a legacy of love here at Eden Village,” she said. “We had the privilege of giving him a place to live and safety for the last four and a half years.
“He was the epitome of what we try to cultivate here,” she said. “And that’s being a good neighbor. He was a good neighbor, and he loved us so well. I have so much sadness, and I’m so heartbroken, but I also just want to start focusing on that love he left behind, because it was so tangible.”
His big belly laugh was contagious
According to Sooter, Woods wanted to make sure “everyone around him was happy, that they felt his love.
“He had this big belly laugh that he just used all the time,” Sooter said. “He never heard it, you know. That’s a shame he never heard his own laugh because it was contagious. It was like, ‘OK, now I’m going to try to make you laugh because I want to hear that again.’
“I’ve never met anyone like him. Ever. And I don’t think there’s anybody else walking around on the planet like him,” Sooter continued, “someone who has been through so much trauma, someone who can’t hear on top of that and has that challenge to deal with, but yet had so much love and laughter to give to people. It was mind blowing.”
Schlueter and Sooter are having a photo of Woods enlarged and framed to hang in the community room.
It’s a photo of Woods giving Sooter a hug with Sooter’s back to the camera. The photo was picked because anyone can imagine being in Sooter’s place, getting one of Woods’ bear hugs.
“One of my colleagues said it best. He said, ‘I am sure you have a Mel-sized hole in your heart and will for a very long time,’” Sooter said. “And I just thought, you know what? He was six-foot-five and just a big, big guy, a big presence, big love, big laughter, big everything. And he’s absolutely right. I have a Mel-sized hole in my heart right now.”
