KATY, Texas -- A homeless man is trying to set the record straight after video of him went viral.
Three, 30-second clips have been viewed on Facebook more than 2 million times combined. The videos show 25-year-old Brandon Wilcox unloading a wheelchair from the back of a Toyota SUV near Grand Parkway.
Comments under the viral post accused Wilcox of being a scam artist. The angry interactions causing Harris County Sheriff’s deputies to check and see if Wilcox was committing a crime.
The man told KHOU 11 News he’d grown up in foster care and didn’t have a family to depend on.
“Most people got family to catch them when they fall down," Wilcox said. "See, I ain’t got nobody like that.”
He went on to say he’d recently found his biological father, who had help by paying for Wilcox to have a cell phone, and paid the registration on the SUV Wilcox calls home.
Wilcox has been on the streets of Houston for the at least the last year, according to Tina Hatcher, the executive director of Hope Impact. Hatcher says her group has offered services to Wilcox in that time.
Brandon Wilcox, who says he weights around 500 pounds depends on his wheelchair to support his weight.
“It’s the only chair I own that can hold and support my big a**,” Wilcox said.
He used money he gathered from both panhandling and pressure washing to pay for the Toyota Sequoia he sleeps in at night. Before that, Wilcox says he slept behind local stores, in a tent in the woods, or on the curb under the stars.