A TikToker raised $400K for an unhoused man. Then things got messy.
Hungry and lonely, walking unfamiliar D.C. streets on a Wednesday afternoon in January, Sanai Graden fired up her TikTok account.
As the University of California at Berkeley senior headed up P Street NW, an unhoused man called out asking for tea. “I’m walking to Trader Joe’s; you want to walk with me?” she asked him. “We can stop at Starbucks?”
The man, who said his name was Alonzo, soon confided to her that he had just been diagnosed with prostate cancer. Their brief interaction stretched into an all-day saga: She decided to pay for his medication at CVS, then got him a hotel room for the night. Graden, 21, filmed as the pair walked the city, slowed by Alonzo’s pained steps. She started calling him “Unc” as a sign of affection.
“These are your keys, Unc,” she said as they stepped into his hotel room. “I want you to enjoy yourself.”
Before leaving, Graden spoke directly into her camera, addressing her then 36,000 followers. “Yo, TikTok, we need to raise money for Unc,” she said.
The video exploded on TikTok, drawing millions of views. Donations poured into a GoFundMe account Graden set up, jumping within days to more than $400,000. She amassed thousands more followers, who celebrated her as Unc’s “angel.” Someone even set up a GoFundMe for her that eventually raised over $26,000.
But a hard detour came nearly a week later, when a report from D.C. television station Fox 5 identified “Unc” as Alonzo Douglas Hebron, 64, a man with a lengthy criminal history, including a conviction for a violent assault on an unhoused woman.
Following the report, Graden and her mother, who had been talking with The Washington Post about her experience, abruptly stopped answering questions, then, this Sunday, referred reporters to her lawyer. Both she and her lawyer have publicly accused GoFundMe of improperly withholding funds and have threatened to sue.
According to correspondence the lawyer shared with The Post, the company has asked for proof that Hebron consents to Graden’s withdrawal of the money on his behalf, as well as information on how the funds would get to him. The company said in a statement it routinely requests documentation, adding, “as soon as we receive that documentation, the funds will be transferred.”
The saga has shown how quickly a viral fairy tale can slam into reality and how even seemingly good intentions can be vilified in a quick-trigger backlash online. But it also underscores how anything - particularly a social issue as layered as America’s homelessness crisis - is never as simple as it looks through social media.
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‘Trust takes time’
Since going live in 2010, GoFundMe has raised $30 billion from 150 million donors, becoming an easy and alternative route for help outside of traditional channels. Users have set up fundraisers for car repairs, cancer treatment and much more.
But the rise in crowdfunding has created an ad hoc aid system that relies mostly on the whims of amateurs, said Martin Lukk, a PhD candidate in sociology at the University of Toronto who recently wrote a book on the subject.
“If you think about what a professional fundraising organization does … it takes time and energy and thinking to manage millions of dollars in charitable giving,” Lukk said. “In GoFundMe, it’s a lot of amateurs. And they run into trouble.”
Lukk pointed to the case of the 2018 crash of a bus carrying the Humboldt Broncos youth hockey team that killed 16 people in Saskatchewan, Canada. Within 12 days of the tragedy, a GoFundMe account collected $15.2 million for the families. But that money became jammed up for months in a court process over how the funds should be allocated.
Although such one-off campaigns can significantly help recipients, the impact is narrow and depends on the whims of donors who are probably disconnected from the bigger issues at play, said Matthew Wade, a lecturer at La Trobe University in Australia who has studied the social dynamics of crowdfunding.
“Unfortunately, crisis crowdfunding - and the satisfaction of giving to such campaigns - lends itself well to one-off heroic interventions for single beneficiaries,” Wade said, “but not to long-term, sustainable remedies that will enable positive change en masse.”
Although D.C. has funneled $145 million in recent years into supporting homelessness programs and shelters, housing placement is a delicate and long process, said Lara Pukatch, the chief advocacy officer at Miriam’s Kitchen, a D.C. nonprofit that does homeless outreach.
“Building trust takes time,” Pukatch said. “For folks that have been experiencing chronic homelessness, they might not have a deep trust in a system that has failed them repeatedly.”
Homelessness across the country jumped by a record 12 percent between January 2022 and January 2023, according to the latest estimate from the Department of Housing and Urban Development. There are estimated to be nearly 5,000 men and women drifting through D.C. without permanent shelter, according to a 2023 count by the District.
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Sudden fame
Graden had been trying to build a large TikTok following as a pathway to success in business or fashion. In D.C., social media became a way to pop the bubble of isolation she felt in a new city. After sharing her video of “Unc,” she got more attention than she ever expected.
When The Post sat down with Graden for an interview Feb. 3, just days after her encounter with “Unc,” she had posted more than 20 follow-up videos, showing her buying him a phone and checking him into a hotel for a week. She said she was determined to get Alonzo the money - even though she was uncertain how to get funds to a man without a bank account or government ID.
Should she set up a trust for him? Would a monthly allowance ensure the money wasn’t spent all at once? Did certain banks make it easier to withdraw funds than others?
“I’m going to take everyone through this journey so everyone can witness what I’m doing,” Graden told The Post. “I don’t want to take their money; I want them to see the whole process.”
Then came the blowback.
As first reported by Fox 5, Hebron was arrested and pleaded guilty in 2020 to assault with significant bodily injury and attempted robbery, according to court filings. The victim in that case told the television station she believes he is dangerous. In 2013, Hebron was sentenced to five years in prison for stabbing a man in the neck with a screwdriver. A spokesperson confirmed that he had been released from Rappahannock Regional Jail on Jan. 12, just weeks before he met Graden.
For a week, as Graden’s account remained silent, TikTok users posted commentary videos with thousands of views. Donors demanded refunds.
A Post reporter went to the neighborhood where Hebron is known to hang out and spoke with nearby store owners and unhoused people who knew him and were aware of his incarceration. At least one person knew about the 2020 assault. But efforts to contact Hebron - including asking those who knew him about his whereabouts - were unsuccessful. Hebron’s lawyer in the 2020 case said she did not recall representing him, noting that, as a public defender, she has had many cases in the ensuing years. His family also could not be reached.
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‘No progress has been made’
On Feb. 10, Graden addressed the allegations in a TikTok video, seemingly undeterred: She said she learned of “Unc’s” background at the same time as everyone else. But, she insisted, “the man I met is very kind, down to earth, sweet and super, super grateful and recognizes blessings and his angel - I’m his angel!”
For the next few weeks, Graden continued updating her followers on Hebron, showing her checking him into a long-term hotel and him singing to her.
But on Feb. 24, Graden made a new video for her now 930,800 followers. Gone was the college student embracing the opportunity to help an unhoused man. “The way I envisioned this to pan out was that by now he would be in housing, he would have medical care, he would be set up,” Graden said. “Then I can continue with my studies, and I can continue to be Sanai.” Her follower count had gone down, she added, and people were losing interest in the story.
Graden said in the video that when she launched the GoFundMe, she set herself up as the intended beneficiary because she did not know Hebron’s information at the time. She said she had planned to withdraw the money and transfer it to Hebron through a trust.
“No progress has been made, and that’s because of GoFundMe,” she said. “I feel as though I am being targeted because I am African American and he’s African American, as well, and his criminal history,” she said.
Na’il Benjamin, Graden’s lawyer, told The Post that Graden has requested $3,000 as an “initial payout” to cover what she already spent on Hebron. In response, GoFundMe said it will not release the funds before receiving proof that Hebron will ultimately get the money, as well as his written consent that he wants Graden to be reimbursed, according to correspondence provided by Benjamin.
Among the materials the company requested: a photo of Hebron’s valid government-issued ID, a signed letter indicating that Hebron consents to having Graden access the funds on his behalf, information on how Graden plans to transfer the money to Hebron and a photo of them both with the agreement.
Benjamin said the demand for proof was an arbitrary application of the company’s terms of service tied to Graden and Hebron’s background, and the delay might slow medical care that Hebron needs. “They want to insert some additional security provisions and additional accountability requirements just because of the nature of the people who are involved in the fundraiser,” he said.
What will now happen to the money is unclear. Benjamin said he is drafting a lawsuit. Graden is scheduled to leave D.C. next month after her college program is over. GoFundMe has said that it is working to get the funds to Hebron and called the allegations by Graden and her lawyers “unfounded and false.”
“Our top priority is ensuring Mr. Hebron receives the funds raised for him, just as the donors intended,” a GoFundMe spokesperson said in a statement to The Post.
As of early March, $403,707 still sits waiting in the fundraiser.
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Razzan Nakhlawi and Peter Hermann contributed to this report.
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