SALISBURY — A driver of a vehicle on Jake Alexander Boulevard West hit a pedestrian crossing the busy roadway about 9:30 p.m., killing the pedestrian, according to reports.

The man, known to friends as Reno, is not being identified formally by police because they have been unable to find legal family members to notify. But in the homeless community where he spent so many years, Reno was, and is, well known. The Post did a story on the homeless situation almost two years ago, and a woman named Angie was brave enough to let her story stand for the stories of so many.

Angie and Reno have been together for more than nine years.

She and another friend, John, were walking from their campsite to Speedway to get something to drink, she said, and she and John got across before Reno. When she turned back to see where he was, she tried to warn him, but it was too late. Now she can’t get the images out of her head.

Currently, police say the investigation into the cause of the accident is open, so they cannot release any details. But Angie and John both believe speed was a factor, because they do not think the driver ever hit her brakes.

Death was likely immediate for the larger-than-life man who was closing in on 60, which is a small comfort to Angie, who will remember him as “an incredibly wonderful man. He was quiet until you got to know him, and we picked on each other, but he was my best friend, and I’m trying to find a way forward.”

Angie and Reno also lived on the streets for years with Angie’s dad, Joe, who is now sober and living with Angie’s daughter, Kay, in Salisbury.

Kay said when her mother first told her about Reno, “I wan’t too sure about him. But I watched the two of them together for so long, and I saw the changes in her because of him, and I finally decided he was a good guy.” And he became family.

“The best thing he ever did for me was care for my dad,” said Angie. “He did so much for him, without my having to ask. He just understood that we were a package deal.”

Reno’s life was not perfect or easy. He had a history of larceny, including stealing an activity bus nearly 10 years ago in 2016 that ended in a chase across several counties. But he never faced any charges involving violence, and his protection of Angie and her father came from devotion, not from anger.

John, who met Reno not long ago, became a close friend that Reno could talk to about things that had begun to weigh on him, things he could not talk about even with Angie, and that, John said, was a good thing.

“Reno was a gentle soul, but he was also a bit lost,” he said. “When we started talking, I think it made things better.” Angie said when they would get in deep conversations, she would leave them be. And John eventually was able to convince his friend to go to the hospital to get some health issues checked out.

It was good he did, because it turned out Reno had both pneumonia and congestive heart failure. He was only recently released from treatment, and was still moving slower than he had been the night of the accident.

But he was not, as someone at the scene alleged, suicidal. Angie said he’d just come from the hospital where he’d been treated and begun to recover, and “that would have been the last thing he would ever have done.”

Now, for Angie and the family Reno created, the challenge becomes where to go from here. They have no legal standing. They can’t get answers about his death, and Angie cannot get back any of his personal effects, despite the fact that they are all she has left, because she would need a previously signed power of attorney or a court order.

“I just want back his cross necklace that I gave him,” she said. But the law doesn’t make allowances for partnerships that are not legal marriages or bound by legal documentation. And for a homeless couple, those are costs that never even cross their minds.

For now, Angie is working to do the one thing she can — plan for cremation of Reno’s remains and a memorial ceremony among their friends. There is a cross being built to put near the site, “and it’s going to be beautiful,” she said. But she added that she feels she is being penalized for being homeless in the most difficult moment of her life. She lost her mother years ago, and thought that grief might be the hardest to bear. But now she’s lost her partner, and feels like she’s being told she has no right to grieve because they were not “officially” family.

“I’m a human being, and I’ve lost my best friend,” she said. “Kindness doesn’t cost anything. People should be able to be kind in a moment like this.”