Doug “Boy Scout” Harding, a self-described “retired hobo” heads to Marshall White Park after picking up an early morning beer on Friday, Jan. 15, 2016. After several decades of hopping freight trains and working odd jobs around the west, Harding has spent most of the last two years in Ogden camping out and living in homeless shelters. Now 57, he is in the final steps of getting his own apartment.
Doug Harding smokes a cigarette in downtown Ogden as he waits to hear about a possible apartment that he could move into on Friday, Jan. 15, 2016. Harding says he enjoyed the hobo life for decades, but began thinking of settling down when a fellow train rider asked him if he was still going to be riding the rails at 75.
Doug Harding, left, and John Flores move a new mattress and box spring into Harding’s apartment after signing a lease earlier in the afternoon on Tuesday, Jan. 19, 2016. Harding worked for months with Weber Human Services to get into an apartment with assistance.
Three days after moving in, Doug Harding, center, hangs out on the balcony in front of his apartment with his brother, David Harding, left, and “Cowboy”, a homeless friend of Doug’s who is now working on getting an apartment as well.
Doug Harding picks up his monthly allotment of groceries at the Joyce Hansen Hall Food Bank on May 25, 2016. Four months after moving into his apartment, Harding was working the odd landscaping and maintenance job.
Homemade signs cover Doug Harding’s front door. Harding says he has had to keep some former homeless friends away who he feels are trying to take advantage of his new home. He recently kicked out a woman who was staying with him because she would be loud in the middle of the night and he didn’t want to risk upsetting his neighbors and getting evicted.
Doug “Boy Scout” Harding’s Central Ogden neighborhood is reflected in the screen door as he works on his bike on the apartment porch on Wednesday, May 25, 2016.
Steven Flattree, left, and Doug Harding dump a wheelbarrow full of dirt and building scraps into a garbage can behind an apartment in Central Ogden on Friday, Dec. 23, 2016. The two men worked together shoveling snow while they were both homeless fifteen years earlier. Flattree, who now works as a contractor, recently found Harding and will hire him occasionally to help out.
Old friends and strangers hang out in Doug Harding’s living room as the weather gets cold in early December. When the weather gets bad, homeless people regularly stop by looking for a place to warm up. Harding says he has lost many friends because they just try to take advantage of his living situation.
Doug Harding takes a break from cleaning out his living room as he gets ready to abandon his apartment and return to camping on the outskirts of Ogden on Aug. 29, 2016. “Society didn’t give up on me,” Harding said. “I gave up on them.” After seven months in housing, Harding was broken down by what he saw as his homeless friends taking advantage of him and his apartment.
Doug Harding takes off his dress shirt as he leaves court and heads to the FrontRunner station in Salt Lake City on Tuesday, Sept. 6, 2016. After the surprise of getting off relatively lightly, Harding says he’ll be staying in his apartment long enough to find a place in the country that he can move to.
Doug Harding and Kris Walker lean on one another in Harding’s apartment on Wednesday, Dec. 7, 2016. Harding and Walker live in the same apartment building and met over the summer. They have been dating on and off ever since.
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