Running for mayor as a populist, Manuel Medina has advocated a $15 minimum wage for municipal workers.

He could start with the homeless people he uses for his campaign.

A wealthy resident of The Dominion, Medina apparently has found the local homeless population politically useful. Some he has paid a few dollars to wear his campaign T-shirt, according to Aline Alonzo, who works with homeless ministries.

On separate occasions, two homeless men told Alonzo that Medina himself had given them a campaign shirt, the ministry worker said. One of the men came to her downtown ministry wearing one.

"He said (Medina) had given him $10 and told him to wear his shirt," said Alonzo, 49, who asked to be identified by her middle and maiden name. "This gentleman told me he's been handing them out to the homeless."

Reached late Wednesday, Medina denied this.

"Why would you say that?" he said after a long pause. "The answer is no. The answer is 100 percent no."

Alonzo asserted the opposite.

"He's exploiting the homeless," she said. "He's giving them a few dollars, which is really just feeding their drug and alcohol habits, and making them human billboards … They think he's a great and wonderful man because he gave them $10 to go buy liquor. If he really wants to help them, he should pay them minimum wage for the day, at least, to wear his shirt."

These days, Rodney Kidd is working for Medina's campaign for nothing.

"I help Manuel," said Kidd, 45, who said he became homeless about a year ago.

I encountered Kidd downtown on Wednesday about 30 minutes after speaking with Alonzo. Looking for homeless Medina adherents, I found him walking near Main Plaza wearing an "Elect Manuel Medina" T-shirt.

Kidd said Medina paid him last year for "digital marketing and messaging," although now he is "volunteering" for the campaign: "Once my scope of work is completed, I fully expect to be hired by the campaign to deliver some more tech."

(After our conversation, he said he had to rush off to "fix a printer" at Medina's campaign headquarters.)

Kidd has stayed at Prospect's Courtyard, a section of the downtown homeless campus Haven for Hope that offers food and shelter to the chronically homeless.

"I'm technically still somewhat there," Kidd said. "I lost my apartment, my car dealing with my sister and lies … My fianceé went back to Nebraska with our baby. My sister created a whole smokescreen that created a lot of problems. At that point, where do you go? You have nothing."

On Monday, Kidd joined Medina at a campaign protest against me on the front steps of the San Antonio Express-News. The candidate had issued a press release summoning media outlets to the raucous demonstration.

With a scrum of supporters shouting "racist!" and calling for my termination, Medina railed against a column that questioned whether he has lived continuously in Texas for the past 24 years — as Medina has claimed on his ballot application and on the campaign trail.

Wearing a blue "Elect Manuel Medina" cap, Kidd stood behind Medina, shooting video on an iPhone and shouting "USA! USA!" as the candidate falsely told the television news cameras that my column had called him "a Mexican." (The column noted he became an American citizen in 2009.)

On Wednesday, Kidd was polite. He assured me the protest wasn't his idea and asked how the campaign could improve its communication with me. (I found that bitterly funny.)

Kidd was working for Medina, he said, because the candidate "tries to represent everybody" and cares about the homeless.

"Unless the (Prospect's) Courtyard has a model that supports solutions, I'm not going to move forward," Kidd said.

Medina told me he wasn't aware that Kidd was homeless.

"Rodney Kidd is a volunteer," Medina said. "Like many volunteers we have on the campaign, I appreciate his support. I don't know the details of his personal life."

Kidd told me that Medina often asks him out of concern whether he has a place to stay at night.

"Manuel has been nothing but be nice," Kidd said. "There's no doubt in my mind that Manuel would offer me his own house if I pushed the issue."

Kidd should push at least for a wage.

On the street, he seemed desperate to connect, not unlike others in the homeless community I've covered as a reporter. It's not surprising that a demagogue in a suit has managed to win his confidence, particularly one who once pledged in a "faith-based platform" to "address poverty at its root causes not its symptoms and consequences."

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