Angel Parrish, 58 was born in Aurora, Illinois. Her mother was French, had long black hair, green eyes, and she was Jewish. Angel’s father was the complete opposite, so there was always a bit of a religious-culture war going on in their home.

Angel has been an interior decorator, a painter and a sculptor, and today she does paintings and drawings that she sells on the sidewalk, in Hillcrest.

Angel was only 18 the she got married. Her husband was a designer too, but his specialty was heart monitors. The couple moved to Ohio where he worked for a medical device company. Angel was busy raising their five children; three boys and two girls. She proudly boasts that the oldest daughter is a heart surgeon back in Ohio, and the others are all successful in life in one way or another. While raising their children, Angel taught Bible school at a nearby Native American reservation and regularly attended the local community church.

Sitting in the last patch of sunlight on a chilly winter day in Hillcrest, she smiles at passersby who pauses to look at her drawings. She’ll tell them her name is Angel and that helps her keep the devil on the run. If they stay long enough, she will also entertain people with some of her puns and jokes. Hillcrest regulars can usually find her sitting or standing around the corner of Fifth and Robinson Avenues, sometimes in the Starbucks coffee shop, or on a sunny afternoon, selling her drawings. People donate clothes and gift cards whether they buy a drawing or not, because they appreciate her bright smile and sunny attitude. “I refuse to grow up!” she laughs.

When asked how she keeps her spirits up when she can’t get a meal, or feels lonely, she points at her drawings. “If I don’t do art, I’ll die,” she said, adding, “It’s hard being a girl selling art because it gets emotional when people don’t buy anything.”

It’s been ten years since she first began living on the streets. She has been in and out of housing and rehab programs, but for now she’s back on the street. Ten years ago she and her husband of 30 years moved to Los Angeles when he was hired to work at Hughes Aircraft, a job that allowed them to purchase a $450,000 home with a three-car garage and a pool, she said. But ten days after they landed in Los Angeles, her husband died of a heart attack. She was devastated, in a new town with no family or contacts and not much idea of how to deal with the finances. She sold their home, which had virtually no equity, and put most of that money into paying for her children’s schooling, which left her with very little. She heard that San Diego was an easier town to live in, so she caught a southbound bus.

Angel keeps a running dialogue, whether with the person next to her, or sometimes just speaking out loud to whoever might hear her and join the conversation. She talks about how the streets in San Diego are not kind, especially to people like her who stand up for themselves. Through a stream of tears that turned her dark eye makeup to puddles of color on her cheeks, she recounted yelling after someone she witnessed stealing a bicycle near the Rite Aid pharmacy. The bike thief started hitting her and left her crumbled on the ground. Paramedics had to revive her twice, breaking two ribs in the process. Now the bike thief is back out of jail and she fears for her safety.

Another time Angel was in, then out, of housing was a brief stay at Father Joe’s Village. She witnessed a friend get attacked and robbed right after he cashed his paycheck. “They jumped him, and one of the guys had a metal ring with a spike. They put a hole in his temple,” Angel said. She went running to find someone with a phone to call 911, and no one would either lend her their phone or call 911 themselves. “I was screaming, ‘Come back with me right down the street and you can see for yourself!’ but they didn’t believe me, and my friend was lying there bleeding.” The paramedics did eventually come, and her friend did live. But when she returned to the shelter they told her it was past curfew and she couldn’t come in. In fact, the next day she had to move her belongings out, she said. So she has given up on the shelters.

While negotiating for a cigarette from a homeless friend, trading one of two packaged sausages donated to her by a passing stranger, she recounted an episode in her life this past summer when she jumped into a van with a church outreach group. They took her to a faith-based group home situation in Chula Vista, where she was the only woman. They helped her try and get her financial paperwork in order, trying to get her husband’s pension released to her, and signing up for food stamps. But she got into a personality conflict with one of the pastors there, and ended up back out on the street.

When things don’t work out, it hurts for a while, she admits, but her spirit is unquenchable, and she will always come back to happy. It drove her mother crazy, she said, that she was always happy. Her mother even took her to a psychologist to see if there was something wrong with her. “I ended up doing the same thing to my daughter!” she admits. “She was the same way: always smiling, and I wondered if there was something wrong. But that’s just the way we are.”