It was one more charitable thing on Omega Psi Phi fraternity’s list: Bring the Thanksgiving spirit to a family in need.

As the group pulled up to the La Quinta Inn off Fort Worth Drive last week, Scottie Smith, a senior finance major at the Uni­versity of North Texas, said his stomach flopped.

For the DRC/David Minton

University of North Texas senior Scottie Smith, founder of Frametech Properties, which buys and refurbishes homes for low-income families, looks over a boarded-up house he would like to acquire in Southeast Denton on Monday.

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The fraternity brought all the holiday dinner trimmings, including a 16-pound turkey, to a needy single mother and her teenage son, who were Hurricane Ike evacuees trying to make it in a new city, Smith said.

But those 16 pounds of cold turkey flesh sent Smith’s heart tumbling.

There was nowhere to cook the holiday meal in the motel room.

“It really hit hard,” he said, choking back tears.

As the fraternity brothers hovered in the crowded room, Smith said his thoughts roamed to his past and another crowded motel room.

When Smith was in middle school, his parents and seven of his siblings were living

with his grandmother in southeast Houston, he said.

During his middle school years, his grandmother and family were evicted from their home. With nowhere to go, they went to the only shelter they could find — a Homewood Suites hotel room.

As Smith and 10 family members shared one large hotel room, bathroom time was limited and the five months it took for Smith’s family to get out of the hotel seemed eternal, he said.

The Denton County Homeless Coalition identified 280 homeless people in the county in January 2007. There is no way of knowing the exact number from the fallout from the troubling economic times or the recent addition of displaced families from Hurricane Ike until the next count, which will take place in January, said Rachel Ingram of the Denton County Housing Adminis­tra­tion, which works with the coalition.

The anecdotal stories of homeless families seem to be rising with stories of some living in cars or asking for help, said Barbara Atkins, executive director of HOPE Inc., a nonprofit transitional living services program.

“The Denton County Home­less Coalition anticipates an increase in homeless persons and families in January; until then, it’s hard to tell,” Atkins said. 

The homeless family program is echoed nationwide, with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Develop­ment asking agencies to track families who can no longer afford shelter.

For Smith, those long five months of not having a home made him determined to never be in that situation again and to do everything he could to bring families in need and homes together, he said.

Now, he said he would do anything to stay in a home and get as many families into homes as he can.

Smith founded a company now known as Frametech Prop­erties, which buys houses and renovates them for low-income and first-time home buyers.

He said he manages the housing projects, finances and handles all construction needs on several projects that spread from Houston and North Texas.

The Hurricane Ike evacuees aren’t the first family Smith has wanted to help out. He estimated he has helped about seven families in North Texas and Houston find homes over the last few years since starting his company as a freshman at UNT.

One of them, a single mother named April Moss, said she wouldn’t have been able to afford a home for herself and her three children if it weren’t for Smith’s help.

“He’s a great landlord,” Moss said. “I haven’t had a landlord as caring as him. He’s not a slumlord and he’s kind-hearted.”

And now Smith is considering buying one of the many boarded-up houses in South­east Denton to renovate for the family he met in the hotel room, he said.

The brick house is boarded up and has been vacant for four years, a neighbor said.

The house has a large yard that stretches to the paved road, while overgrown trees and shrubbery stand guard over the place and jagged broken glass from an upstairs window looks menacingly toward the street.

Smith said that hasn’t stopped someone from taking the air conditioner off the side of the home and removing copper wiring.

Although a city code enforcement officer marked the home “substandard for living,” the foundation looks sturdy and the house has a lot he can work with, Smith said.

“It’s a nice property,” he said. “It’s in a community that could use the facelift.”

It will take something like an “extreme home makeover” to make it livable, Smith said, but he is optimistic that if he can take ownership of the property, he could make it livable within weeks.

“There are so many houses and properties here for families to live in,” he said. “There is no need for that [homelessness].”

Smith’s parents moved into a new home in the last few weeks, right in time for the holidays, into a “big upgrade” from where his family was before, he said.

“I think we were blessed,” Smith said. “We’ve been brought a long way.”

When he called his mother, he asked her if she remembered when 11 family members stayed in one motel room for five months. Her reply was a simple “yes,” but she didn’t want to talk about it, he said.

That wasn’t surprising, Smith said. It’s something he sees from other families in need; they think no one understands their situation and are embarrassed to talk about it.

But Smith said he understands all too well.

“Success for me is the only option,” he said. “I’ve already been down in the lowest of the lows. I want to help others, let them know there is someone out here who cares.”

CANDACE CARLISLE can be reached at 940-566-6889. Her e-mail address is ccarlisle@dentonrc.com .