May 24,2004

Castoff Armani Suit Spawns Washington Lobbyist

Homeless Man Opens Office on Park Bench near White House

A program in which Washington lobbyists donate their cast off Armanis, Pradas and Ralph Laurens to the poor in hopes of providing a leg up to a better life has its first success story.

He's Elias Eilzondo, a homeless man who credits the Armani suit he was given with launching his new career as a lobbyist.

For years, Elizondo, who believes he is either 42 or 43 years old, had been a fixture on a Lafayette Park bench opposite the White House. He sat next to a hand-lettered cardboard sign that read: Will Work for Food.

After he was given a K Street lobbyist's slightly worn Armani suit, two Land's End dress shirts and a purple polka dot tie through the American League of Lobbyists' clothes for the poor program, Elizondo had the bright idea of donning the swanky new threads and changing the wording of his sign.

The new message: Will Lobby for Food.

"I thought, what the heck, man. Why not," Elizondo recalled during a recent interview on his bench-office.

To his amazement, Elizondo said he had his first client within two hours of putting up the new sign.

"This guy from some town in Pennsylvania comes up to me and asks he if I can help him get a loan from the Small Business Administration," Elizondo recalled. "I didn't have no idea what he was talking about or how to do it and I almost said that. But then I thought, wait a minute, man, I'm a lobbyist. I don't need to know nothin'."

Elizondo asked for a retainer of $100 and requested that his new client write down his name and address. He told the client to meet him back at the bench at the same time the next morning.

"Couple of years ago, business as usual would've been to run as fast as I could to A-1 Liquor and get a bottle of Cajun Lightning," Elizondo said. "But now I'm in A.A."

Instead, he stashed the money in the bottom of his right sneaker and walked the two miles to Capitol Hill, where he entered the lobby of the Rayburn building. He showed his client's name and address to a Capitol Police officer and asked how to find his client's congressman.

The police officer called over a congressional staffer who happened to be entering the building and handed Elizondo over to her. She turned out to be a member of the staff of a congressman from New Mexico. The staffer helped get Elizondo through Rayburn security, took him to her office, and then called a friend at the Small Business Administration.

Next, Elizondo walked another two miles to the SBA, met with the SBA bureaucrat, and arranged a meeting for the next day between Elizondo, his client and the SBA employee.

Elizondo said he spent a restless night on his cot at the shelter, the $100 retainer in the sneaker under his pillow. The next morning, after a shave and shower - not his usual routine - Elizondo put on the second Land's End shirt and the Armani and hurried back to his bench-office. He extracted another $100 from the client, got the client to spring for the taxi to the SBA, made the introductions to the bureaucrat he'd softened up the afternoon before and bowed out.

"I swear to you, man, that when I got back to my bench, I'd left my sign propped upon the bench to hold my spot, this dude was pacing back and forth. 'Where ya been?' he says to me. 'I got me a problem and they say yer a fixer.'"

Elizondo doubled his retainer on the spot, listened to the client's problem involving an import license for goods from "some place in Africa", and used a pay phone near his bench-office to call his friend, the congressional staffer. She hooked him up with a friend at the State Department, who relayed Elizondo to a friend of a friend at Commerce where he made the right connection for the client.

"This import license dude was overjoyed to give me $500, and he threw in a $100 tip," Elizondo said. "After he left, I sat there with my sign for maybe an hour and, bam! I had another client."

Elizondo's retainer is now $1,000 and sometimes there's a line of clients waiting to speak with him. He said the woman from the American League of Lobbyists is looking for a second suit and some leather shoes to replace the sneakers.

"She offered me a Brooks Brothers, but I want a Ralph Lauren," he said. "And I asked her for some of them shirts where the cuffs don't have no buttons and you use them gold things to hold them closed."

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