Originally published in Carroll Capital, the print publication of the Carroll School of Management at Boston College. Read the June 2025 issue here.
Professors, parents, and others naturally have high hopes for students and young alums, but the expectations surrounding Gordon Wayne ’23 are something else. “We hope you will work and thrive—and end this problem,” said Anna Bissonnette, founder of Hearth, a Boston-based nonprofit. She was presenting the organization’s annual award to Wayne, and the problem she believes he could end is nothing less than the ongoing horror of homelessness in America.
Wayne accepted the award at a downtown gala hosted in October by Hearth, which seeks to combat elder homelessness in Greater Boston. He received the honor because of his personal story, his uncommon ability to inspire action, and his two feet.
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Gordon Wayne and Anna Bissonnette at the Hearth gala in October.
Now a student at University of Georgia School of Law, the young man strode into the national spotlight in August 2020 as he journeyed to Boston to begin his studies at the Carroll School. Wayne was making the 550-mile trek from his home in rural Virginia—on foot—to call out the plight of the unhoused. “Home” is a word used loosely in this context. He had been living out of his car for 15 months, working full-time as a pizza delivery driver and loading up on courses at a community college.
Wayne was plunged into homelessness soon after finishing high school, a consequence of what he gently refers to as a “family collapse,” not wanting to broadcast the hair-raising details. He used all of his savings to purchase a 2002 Honda Civic, foraged for food in dumpsters, showered at the YMCA, and worked 60-hour weeks at an amusement park. “I felt worthless, beneath everyone else,” Wayne says in his unhurried drawl. A believing Catholic, he says it was prayer that pulled him through—that, and the satisfaction of earning his associate’s degree in one year. He then applied to four-year colleges.
“I still needed a miracle,” he recalls, which materialized as an email from his dream school. Boston College accepted him with a financial aid package covering tuition, room, and board—the only school that believed in him enough to do so.
Elated, Wayne considered what he could do for those left behind. "I'll walk to Boston," he decided. As he crossed from Maryland into Pennsylvania on bruised and blistered feet, a married couple stopped to help, heard his story, and called the local television news station. Then came national media coverage, and money poured into his GoFundMe campaign. He raised $180,000 for the National Alliance to End Homelessness, which parceled out grants to organizations including Habitat for Humanity’s Boston College chapter.
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At the Carroll School, Wayne’s concentrations were leadership and marketing. He gravitated to the Joseph E. Corcoran Center for Real Estate and Urban Action, which granted him a prized summer internship at Boston’s Mattapan Food and Fitness Coalition. There, he “refined his skills in community mobilization,” says Neil McCullagh, Corcoran’s executive director. Through the Winston Center for Leadership and Ethics and other campus groups, he spearheaded efforts to provide direct aid to homeless families. “He brought his mission to BC, and the students ran with it,” says Winston director Monetta Edwards.
After graduation, Wayne walked again—notching 570 miles from Virginia to his law school in Georgia and raising another $27,000. This past spring, he did a semester in practice at the Washington-based Urban Land Institute, laying the groundwork for 10 principles on how the real estate industry could help end homelessness.
Wayne says he now wants to use his lawyering skills rather than his feet to advocate for “my people,” those without homes. “It’s mind-blowing,” he says, reflecting on how far he has come since his sleepless nights in the Civic, “but I think this is just the start."
