Moses Miramontes

When I first met Moses just over a year ago he was camped out on the side of the old central library in downtown San Diego. He projected positive energy and declared he was running for mayor since he had solid solutions for managing the homeless crisis. Last week we met up again - this time at the bridge tent shelter operated by Alpha Project in Barrio Logan. We talked about what inspired his transition from the street to finally living at a shelter.

The turning point came during a phone conversation with his oldest daughter after she told him “Daddy, I need you. I need you to come back.”

When we first met, Moses had recently been stabbed multiple times in the leg with a military survival knife. The blade hit an artery and he nearly bled to death. The attackers thought he was someone else, it turned out, and Moses just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. There was still some infection in the wounds. His leg was beginning to swell and he was having trouble walking. During a different attack, a robbery, he was hit in the head and neck with a cinder block brick, leaving him with severe neck injuries.

Moses said that when he first ended up on the streets nearly five years ago, people thought he was a push over because he was quiet and didn’t fight back when people robbed or assaulted him. “I wished I had a roof over my head, hoping a shelter would come get me because living outside homeless is dangerous,” he said. “I felt like I was painted in blood and dropped off in the middle of the Amazon forest in the middle of the night.”

But he gradually made friends and became known as the person to go to when someone was sick or needed a shoulder to cry on. “Whenever there was an OD, I tell people, you know how many people's chest I've pumped out here with CPR? About 75 to 80. No exaggeration. And it's a beautiful thing because I didn't know that I was able to do that. Some of them were like spiritual religious experiences.” Being able to help others elevated his self-esteem, helped him realize his strengths, and gave him a purpose. He said people started seeing him as a pillar, and a chaplain.


He found ways to create creature comfort on the street - often at someone else’s expense, he admits. He would take batteries from electric bikes and scooters and hook them up to portable solar panels so he could run electricity to a refrigerator and lights. He showed others how to do it. He also showed others the best way to cook and to wash their clothes by hand.

He heard comments constantly from PATH outreach workers and the members of the downtown partnership patrol like, “Moses, what are you doing out here? You don't belong out here. This isn't you. What's wrong?” Those comments helped him feel validated, but they were not enough to motivate him to leave the streets.

Also, without an income, he was buoyed by the donations he would receive from passersby or charitable groups. “I'm getting good luck. People are giving me laptops. They're giving me this Pelican backpack. That's like a $300 backpack. And they're saying ‘we're so proud of what you're doing, what you’ve overcome. We are so proud of this bro, like the way you talk to people, the way you're always wanting to help people, give hugs.’”

His life had become routine. “A lot of times it's hard to leave this because this is the only family you ever known,” he said. That street family plays an important role for Moses. The nuclear family of a wife and three daughters was torn apart when he discovered his wife was cheating on him. When he confronted her, according to Moses, she admitted it, but then accused him of domestic violence and succeeded in getting a restraining order that kept him away from her as well as their daughters for five years.

“Man, she took everything. I didn't even get a paperclip. I didn't get nothing. She just threw me out on the street and moved in her boyfriend that night.”

He was especially worried what that chaos would mean to their daughters, now aged 12, 18, and 20. “I raised the youngest one myself,” he said. “I was home because of a worker’s comp injury, so I was there for all my daughters, but the youngest one especially.”

That closeness has been his lifeline on the street. He has regular FaceTime calls with the girls. About six months before going into the shelter, he was talking with them, getting emotional about the fact his restraining order would be expiring soon and he would be able to see them again. He started crying. “I told them, I’m almost done with this kids, I’m almost done, I’ve got six more months of this, and I was kind of emotional and I was crying, and my youngest daughter said ‘Stop it daddy, you stop it right now! Let me tell you something daddy. God came down and told us himself, we are so proud of you, what you are doing out there.’ She is so strong that little one,” he said.

Shortly after moving into the shelter he was hospitalized and diagnosed with COPD. Gratefully, he had a place to rest. If he tried to do more than walk to the showers or the bathroom shelter staff would lecture him, and tell him to get back to bed. He gives them credit for turning his attitude around. In previous attempts to live at the shelter, he would get angry for no apparent reason, he said, turning over tables, pushing staff, and then getting kicked out. But they kept giving him a second and third chance, he said, and now he is a calm person who spends his days going to advocacy meetings and writing his story down.

“You know, they (the Alpha Project staff) were a blessing. And it's just - it was so cool. Because I've never had anybody care for me,” he said. “I've never had anybody be there and just encouraged me. Everybody said I have potential.”

Moses leaned forward across the outside table where we sat in the shelter courtyard and began reading aloud the editorial he was writing for presentation at an upcoming city council meeting. He is enthusiastic about his new role as an advocate for unhoused individuals, working through the organization “Uplift.”

As I was writing this I received a text from Moses telling me he has a new job at Petco Park. He has a goal of clearing his record of that restraining order, acquiring as many skills as possible, and finding a job where he can help uplift other people from the street to permanent supportive housing. He emphasized that many people fall through the cracks or return to the street because there is no follow-up once they are in housing. People forget how to maintain a residence, if they ever knew, he said.

Moses said his lived experience gives him an understanding of what people really need at a given moment in their day. Many times he was about ready to commit suicide, and a smile from a passing stranger saved him. “Someone smiling at me kept me from doing that. Because I was acknowledged,” he said.

“There's many people that have been broken all their life, or had no one to encourage them. If we would stop and think and say ‘I want to encourage this person and build them up,’ there'll be more others that are like me who have bright ideas and who could be an asset, you know, to everybody,” Moses said. “Imagine how many others like me are out there waiting for someone to believe in them. So ask yourself, How many people did you encourage and believe in today?”