Five goats -- and the friendly family to whom they belong -- are helping Stephen Elliott make it through the night.

Formerly homeless, and formerly a heroin addict (one month clean, he points out), Elliott lives in a barn behind the Reisterstown home of Deanne Callegary and L.R. Wagner, who met him while volunteering at the shelter where he once stayed and later invited him to tend their goats.

When he can't sleep, reporter Julie Scharper points out in a story in today's Sun, Elliott, 47, leaves his mattress, walks to where the five goats live and spends some quiet moments scratching them behind their ears.

After years of drug abuse and months of homelessness, Elliott "has found solace, perhaps salvation, among a family of goats," Scharper reports. It has been his longest period of stability in years, and he's more hopeful than he has been in a long time.

To see the full story, and photos by Jed Kirschbaum, who also shot the video above, click here.