James Brady finds $850 and turns it into police - “Even though I was homeless, I thought there are people out there who could be worse off - you just have to do what you think is right”

James Brady was on his daily walk in Hackensack’s downtown one day last spring when he found a white bank envelope on a Main Street sidewalk with $850 inside. No one was around, so he had a decision to make.

CARMINE GALASSO/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

James Brady was homeless and unemployed when he found $850 in cash on a Hackensack sidewalk and turned it in to police. No one claimed the lost property over the next six months.

CARMINE GALASSO/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Homeless when he found $850 on a Hackensack street, James Brady retrieved the money when no one claimed it during the six-month period after it was turned in to Hackensack police.

Keep it or tell someone?

He told police — a remarkable act for a man who was homeless and unemployed and desperately needed the money.

“Even though I was homeless, I thought there are people out there who could be worse off,” said Brady, 59, who has lived most of his life in Englewood and Leonia. “I had my mother’s voice in my head: ‘It’s not yours.’ ”

So on that day, April 16, Brady turned in the money at the Hackensack police station. On Friday, he went back to headquarters to collect the $850 that no one had claimed during the six-month holding period for lost property held by police.

Officer Brian Feuilly handed him the cash and joked: “So where are we going for lunch?”

Brady’s plans for the cash are simple. First, he wanted a sandwich — he likes an Italian combo or turkey. He also wanted to buy a bath mat for the apartment he got in Hackensack in July through a county Housing Authority voucher program, so that he doesn’t slip in the tub.

He’ll use part of the money, he said, for new sneakers. He wears a special shoe for overpronation — a condition caused by improper arch support that causes feet to roll inward — in a size 9½, 4E in width.

Sneakers are more than just a foot accessory for the lean, 6-foot-tall Brady. He walks three miles a day and walking, for him, is a way to get out into the world and stay connected. Even when things were bad and he closed himself off from friends and family, Brady still walked.

Brady was a news photographer before switching careers, he said, to become a market data analyst. He left his job after a merger and was looking for a new one in 2001, when the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks happened. He was supposed to go to a finance and technology exposition that day at the World Trade Center, but canceled.

He was crippled by the knowledge, he said, that he could have been killed. He grew depressed and withdrew from people, becoming “like a hermit.”

Over 10 years, he used up his bank savings and retirement fund until he was evicted from his Leonia apartment. He slept on the streets, and then visited the Bergen County homeless shelter on River Street in Hackensack. With urging from a staffer there, he checked into a psychiatric hospital where he spent six days.

With help from doctors and medication, his health improved. He remained at the county shelter until he got a $600 housing voucher, but he wasn’t able to find a place for that amount of money. He stayed with friends and on the streets again, returning to the shelter in February.

He got his new place in July, with a different voucher that covers $1,095 in rent. It’s a first-floor apartment with one bedroom and a balcony on Polifly Road.

“It’s great,” he said. “I have people visiting. I get out of the apartment and go downtown. I’m trying not to do the hermit thing again.”

Brady has also been outspoken on behalf of the homeless community in Hackensack. He contacted The Record last summer to say he believed homeless men and women were being unfairly treated in a police quality-of-life initiative.

“Most people are decent people who fell on hard times,” he told the paper. “All they’re really looking for is a second chance.”

He was tapped to attend a recent community meeting with police, in case homelessness came up in discussion. It often does, because of long-standing tension in the city over the large homeless presence.

Julia Orlando, director of the county’s Housing, Health and Human Services Center in Hackensack, said she wasn’t surprised by Brady’s actions because he is “thoughtful and considerate of other people.”

His actions showed positivity in the homeless community at a tense time, she said, when the police initiative had just begun.

“He told me about it,” Orlando said. “He wanted people to know that homeless people are also good, decent and honest.”

Brady didn’t seek recognition for turning in the $850, but the City Council heard about it and will honor him at a meeting Tuesday.

Hackensack Police Director Michael Mordaga said Brady showed that people in any circumstance can do good deeds.

“He’s an honest guy and he wanted to do the right thing,” Mordaga said. “I applaud any citizen that does that. It’s a great gesture for anyone.”

Brady credits his mother’s guidance and his Catholic upbringing for keeping him in line. He said the money was tempting, but he knew he couldn’t keep it.

“You just have to do what you think is right,” he said.