The marshals came for Pastor Mike Little and his partner two days before Christmas 2016. Being behind on their rent, they were evicted, casting Little, 61, his partner and their cat out on the street.

It didn't take long for them to be attacked by a crazy homeless person wielding a skateboard one day. It put his partner in the hospital. The partner suffers from HIV and mental disorders, and Little was his legal caregiver. Since the attack put his partner in a medical care facility, the SSI that Little was receiving as his partner’s caregiver was canceled.

Now that he has lots of free time, Pastor Mike has been drafting his dream plan: to purchase 88 acres of land near Julian where he can house up to 1,800 people, putting them to work building tiny houses for the homeless. He specifically wants to bring in families and kids aging out of the foster care system. “We’ll call it There’s Hope California,” he said. “I believe in using my adversity to help others with theirs.”

Born in Chicago, Little’s family moved to Phoenix when he was a baby. Chronic bronchitis kept him from joining the Air Force, but he knew he was drawn to the seminary anyway. “I walked through the halls of my high school carrying a Bible,” he said. “My dad was a 30-year career Marine, and he and I were both upset that I couldn’t serve in the military.”

His mother skated for the Chicago Bay Bombers; a derby queen.

Little started hanging out with a street ministry on the south side of Chicago. They traveled the country singing and proselytizing…. until a senior minister was caught molesting a young girl. He then worked odd jobs, mostly security, in small towns. In 1984 he was hurt in a car accident in South Bend, Indiana. Driving a big black Fleetwood he hit a patch of black ice going about 75 mph. Most of the bones in his face were broken. It took two hours to extract him from the car.

Once he began healing and was able to work again, he started doing computer hardware work. His father was an engineer, so he came to it naturally. One morning while making breakfast, his boyfriend decided to shoot himself in the bathroom.

Little fell in with an operating room nurse who was addicted to crystal. “He was in so deep, one time he was actually working in the operating room and went code right there. He fell over the patient. I think they cleaned that up and nothing went wrong in surgery, so no one ever knew,” Little said. “The amazing thing is they didn’t pull his license. He kept working.” They did, however, see this as a good time to move to San Diego. It was in San Diego that Little saw how much crystal was running his life. He quit the boyfriend and the drug cold turkey. “I was having major panic attacks. I didn’t want to die.”

In 2004 he met Ronnie, “a spitfire from Dallas, Texas,” and spent eight years with I'm till he died of AIDS. They had their good years together though. In 2010 Pastor Mike was elected Mr. San Diego Leather and represented our city at the International Leather competition.

Now he’s looking for ways to finance his ranch near Julian, to give work and a living community to the homeless. He describes his current camp as the homeless homeless outreach team; sharing experiences, strengths and respect with each other.

“Contrary to the wide belief that all homeless people are dirty, drug addicts and/or alcoholics who are happy with the way they live, we strive to make changes in awareness and perceptions. We lift up each others aspirations and we are very self-policing: from a pack-it-n/pack-it-out attitude to self-placing problematic individuals, and we need to let people know we are NOT happy and there are many who choose not to become complacent,” Little wrote in a note while another person was telling me their story.

“We’re just people out here. I’ve run into business people, people with advanced academic degrees, military, young people. We’re just like everyone else except the sky is our ceiling.”

He also wanted to thank the University Church for “the opportunity to take shelter under their awnings, for their weekly coffee and donuts, monthly dinner and constant support, because they get it!”