Honey (Lakeesha), 39, and dalmatian puppy Jalila share a tent in the park. They have saved each other’s life, at least once. Honey moved into the park at a low point when she and her husband split up and her part time job faded away when the business owner sold out to another company. So she gathered her belongings and set up camp. The recent heavy rains wreaked havoc with her tent, sending it spinning, soaking her belongings. As a single woman, she is vulnerable. She has had many things stolen from her, including a nice bicycle. She’s been sexually assaulted more than once. After Honey saved Jalila from the people who were abusing her, and Jalila tugged Honey away from a freeway bridge, during a moment of despair when she contemplated jumping. Nowadays, the two are inseparable.

Sheri has a degree in geriatrics from USC. She grew up in California in a big family and was happily married for nearly 30 years to a man she calls the “love of my life.” Over the years the couple had nine children, all of whom she said are successful people, either in careers or studying in college. She made one mistake. That mistake changed everything. She ended up being lured into a relationship with someone she met online; who convinced her she was in love with him and to leaver her husband and move in with the stranger.

Angel is a regular feature in Hillcrest, selling her paintings and drawings, smiling bright enough to light up the holiday lights adorning the trees along Fifth Avenue. Born in Illinois, raising five children while her husband worked designing heart monitors in northern Ohio. After 30 years of marriage and the kids almost through college, her husband got a job working for Hughes Aircraft and the couple moved to Los Angeles. They bought a home with a pool and three-car garage. Ten days later he died of a heart attack. Angel sunk into a depression, selling the house, paying off her kids’ college fees and jumped a southbound bus. She’s been on and off the street for the past ten years, living one day at a time, struggling against violence and theft, but always trying to stay positive.

Jeanine has a kind word and a sandwich for any hungry stranger who knocks on her camper shell door…. at a reasonable hour. A transplant from Ohio, where she started life in an orphanage, and was then delivered to her father when he was released from prison, Jeanine is a strong-willed woman who has no shame recounting all the stages of her life leading from Ohio to a truck in San Diego. Jeanine was turned over to her father at age 13. She quickly learned he was a sexual predatory and ran away, leaving her brothers to suffer that abuse. She stayed with an aunt, but was kidnapped into prostitution; escaped that, but was re-introduced into prostitution by a boyfriend. “I got stories!” she said, recounting the episodes of her life. She spent some quality time with a foster family that helped her develop a strong character. She broke both feet jumping out of a window. After hitchhiking her way to Atlanta, she escaped another abusive boyfriend by earning enough money selling ice cream, to buy a one-way ticket on Greyhound to Hollywood. Two years later she was cleaning hotel rooms and working the night shift at a downtown restaurant in San Diego.

Sirprina is proud of her three grown children. As a single mother working long hours cleaning homes and office buildings to make sure they all went to school and were well-fed, she feels a big part of her life was successful. All those years at physical labor resulted in two hip surgeries and avascular necrosis. Sleeping on a sidewalk doesn’t make it any easier. Sirprina never knew her own father, and her mother died when she was 10. Much of her present mental anxiety comes from being attacked while sitting in a wheelchair awaiting tendon surgery. “It was a mental hospital,” she explains. “Suddenly this white guy with tattoos attacks me. I don’t know why. I was just sitting there. He was crazy.” She wants to get into housing and have a mental health case worker so she can get to NA and AA meetings. Her faith in God and the goodness of most human beings keeps her positive until that happens. She hopes people don’t judge her for being homeless. “You have to forgive,” she said softly. “There’s a lot of ill people on the street.”

Emmy McLarty, 54, a cheerful redhead who builds websites for a living, went through most of the life-changing events that analysts say can lead to great depression, in the same year. First the father-in-law suffering from Parkinson’s she’d cared for for seven years died. Three months later she and her husband were both laid off their jobs. And when they decided to sell their house and move, her mother died of lung cancer. Her brothers didn’t include her in much of the end-of-life decisions, which broke her heart. She wandered the country for years before returning to San Diego, where she went through alcohol rehab, and suffered a stroke while living in an SRO downtown, which nearly killed her. And yet to talk with this smiling redhead, you would never imagine she lives in one of the downtown tent shelters.

Brittany has a degree in Early Childhood Education, a proud mother of a bright two-year-old, a boyfriend with skills in welding and tile work. She's cheerful and energetic. She's also addicted to heroin and meth. She battles with the two strong forces in her life: a desire to be a good mother to the son who loves to go with her on day trips to the beach or for ice cream, versus the desire to be with her boyfriend, who has trouble kicking the habit. While they have both been in and out of rehab programs, they are currently out. They know the street is no place for a family with small children and are grateful Brittany's mother has watch over their son for now. "This is coming to an end," she said of her life on the streets.

Lynette Gresham wishes people didn't treat the homeless like they don't exist. Sitting on a bed at the winter shelter run my the Alpha Project for the Homeless, searching for a nebulizer to help with her COPD, she said she wishes more people would try and understand the path to homelessness. Her own experience of child abuse, being in and out of foster care and being pregnant as a teenager set the stage for what followed: living on the streets, falling into a cycle of drugs and prostitution and severe enough health issues to eventually force her to seek shelter and assistance.  "I want to do something meaningful before I leave," she said.

April Sundance, 30, started life as a boy in Ukraine when it was part of the Soviet Union. In a classic tale of betrayal, mafia bosses and strong personalities in the family, Sundance fled Ukraine like her father had done, only she fled to the U.S. where she hoped to fulfill dreams of becoming a transgender person, learning about the drug culture and becoming a Hollywood movie producer. On the rainy streets of San Diego at the beginning of a new year, she is two-thirds of the way there. Having relapsed into using meth for the first time in four months, she is freshly released from a mental health facility, and has an appointment with a crisis house, in her effort to stay sober this time. "I want to be a producer. I need to be in Hollywood. First I need to sober up," she said.

Cat's real name is Etta, for Etta James. She is one of 13 children, all of whom spent their youth in foster care. She lived in 15 different homes in her first 15 years of life. After that she decided to find her own family on the street. She has an out loud personality, which makes it easy for her to attract friends, but also to stand out to law enforcement. That turned out to be a bad thing when someone recognized her skateboard from a residential burglary. She served one and a half years of a four year sentence and has two more years of parole. So she tries to stay out of trouble, calls her two daughters, age five and seven, living with their fathers, and contemplates how to change her situation. Not ready to go indoors, she feels she needs to earn that privilege herself, not through some program. She's working on a plan.