Brittany and Joey
At the point most people would call rock bottom, these two met. And through an act of compassion they became an unlikely but complimentary couple, married nearly four years now. Both were abused as children, were in and out of CPS, CYA, and had seriously combative home lives growing up. After his mother committed suicide, he suppressed his emotions and lashed out at everyone, including prison guards. She went through the foster care system and escaped being sex trafficked to fend for herself. Despite physical ailments and no reason whatsoever to trust anyone ever again, they found a quiet storm in supporting each other against the world. They would really like to find a normal living situation and even menial labor so they could start life afresh together.
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Cheryl
Cheryl Blue, 58, has many interesting life stories; most of them revolve around an obsession with Gregg Allman. She has spent decades mostly on, some off, the streets of San Diego, and keeps a positive attitude by staying creative. She paints tiny greeting cards, mostly in the shape of crosses, or the star of David, or even mosques, so as to not leave any religion out. Raised by a military family that traveled the world, she credits an art teacher in Wales for supporting her artistic tendencies. She tried to be the stay at home mom, baking bread, sharing recipes with the neighbors and home schooling her kids with Christian overtones, but both boys ended up rock 'n' roll musicians anyway. Still, with physical disabilities and living on food stamps, she maintains a smile. "I try not to worry about tomorrow," she says.
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Red
Red knows how to fight. As the only fair-skinned white kid growing up in South Central LA, being called Carrot Top set him off. He slipped right into a gang culture and never left it, gaining a reputation forbeing the one to do the craziest stuff, “like jump through someone’s window to grab their jewelry box,” he said. Hi father was a hard-working machinist who eventually stole something to feed his large family. He went to prison for it. Red was in and out of CYA camps, then prison himself. A road trip with a friend took him to Canada where he fell in love, started a family, but was chased out by his girlfriend's mother, who alerted authorities to his illegal status. After 20 years on San Diego's streets, Red says he's ready to go inside and settle down, but no one will rent to a man with no real income and a prison record.
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Randell
“I don’t know why they just don’t make homelessness illegal,” said Randell, 50, as he folded up his tent for the weekly cleanup on 17th Street downtown. “They keep coming up with this measly little laws around the edge: no loitering, jay walking, no carts, encroachment. I thought encroachment was in football.” Randell grew up in San Diego, went to San Diego High. He wonders why the city doesn't open up it's empty buildings for the homeless; since they're paying for electricity to be on, and the property taxes, he said, why not take the people off the street, give them real counseling. "The city shouldn’t complain about the problem and then not do anything about it,” he said.
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Cookie
Cookie, 48, moved to San Diego with her parents when she was six years old. A graduate of Pacific Coast College, she works as a home health care provider when she can find work; but it's not enough to pay the bills. So she stays on the street, near where her sons are also out on the street. She says you get used to it when you're surrounded by friends and family, but her old bones are getting ready to try and find room in a shelter. In the meantime she directs all her nurturing tendencies towards her three-month-old puppies, Tifu and Nyla.
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Louis
Louis Roldan, 29, is traveling the world playing music and philosophizing through his experiences. Born in Chicago to a hard working teenager and a Puerto Rican heroin addict. His father would sell the food from the cabinets, even the t.v., to get high. Every time he was in prison he swore he would change, but never did. Louis has learned how to not treat people, has studied political science and hopes to some day become a judge. In the meantime, he plays his ukelele for the Universe, mostly in the U.S., Mexico and across Europe. In the U.S., people see him as homeless, but in Europe they see him as a young traveler and invite him in, thanking him for his music and his fresh attitude.
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Steve
Steve Hillard, 52, grew up just a mile from where he is now living on the street under a freeway bridge. He laments the way many of the drug-addicted homeless will stay up all night going through trash "like it's a treasure hunt" leaving the place a mess that reflects poorly on everyone else. He wishes the police and the city officials would treat them like citizens with more money that the homeless have, and give them a decent job with a living wage so they can get a place to live that a person on a minimum wage can afford.
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David
David, 53, born in LA grew up in a patriotic, Christian home, moving around the country. He studied teaching English while wandering the library reading books on chemistry and calculus, which came in handy calculating coordinates for missile strikes while in the US Army. From there he joined an evangelical group converting Taiwanese to Christianity, but soured on their methods. Back in the States he fell into drugs and alcohol but sobered up, fell into a compassionate relationship, but suffered again when she died. Now he plucks out Bowie tunes on the four remaining of a six-string electric guitar.
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Beverly and Ryan
Beverly, 38, and son Ryan, 8, are conscientious about their health despite being homeless. They maintain a vegan diet, and she home schools him, since that's the way she started learning, a much more effective system than the public school in North Carolina full of drugs and gangs. They have tried every shelter in San Diego, some twice, without being able to secure permanent housing. She would love a live-in caregiver position or to work on a community farm.
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Tom
Tom, 63, has a degree in physics. Life was good, raising a family in small town Michigan, working for a company that installs fire sprinklers, designing their systems. Then his marriage broke up, and the people he worked for discovered he had Jewish ancestry. He moved to St. Louis, and his new employers at a similar business were associates of his old company, so he felt he was being pressured out. He traveled the country in his car, with his dog, doing odd jobs, landing in San Diego to live with his son, a machinist in the US Navy, until the son moved. He feels he's escaped death enough times he keeps looking over his shoulder and never sleeps in the same place two nights in a row. Lately, he feels God is telling him to find a safe home indoors finally.
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Cat
Cat, 63, has a degree in biological chemistry, is a black belt in karate, and spent 13 months in California Youth Authority taking the rap for a murder someone else in her gang committed. She would love to see the government finally do right by veterans and their families, and has a theory on how to retool the local homeless assistance agencies.
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Andrea
Andrea Lewis is a licensed pharmacy technician, hoping to own her own business someday doing nutrition and colonics. She sees that as a path to health for herself and others dealing with too much fast food. She spends her days at the library looking for work and grants to finance education. She traded her life on the street for church back in 2000, went to school and has only been able to get part time or temporary work in her chosen profession. She's been homeless since 2004, but she declares this year as her year to rise up.
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Joel
Joel, 36, originally from Alpine, went through some tough times trying to stay in touch with his son. His ex-girlfriend made it a moving target, however, enough to drive Joel into drugs and depression. After getting clean, he relapsed and losing his car made it tough to get to work on time, so he lost his job. Now he lives for the moment, keeping track of his few possessions, moving them around when the police conduct sweeps downtown.
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Danila and Darrell
Danila Hendrix, 57, and Darrell Eudell, 38, met on the street a year ago. Their dream is to buy and operate a hot dog cart, but city restrictions prove restrictive to them with no address and no way of setting up a port-a-potty and wash station nearby. She was trained at the Cordon Bleu cooking school and worked as a private chef in Scottsdale, AZ. He sold cars in his home state of Florida. They keep God and the beauty of the natural world in their conversation, trying to stay positive about their situation.
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Danny
Danny, 46, has been out of prison for just over a year. A skinhead from Santee, he served 14 years for selling drugs. Now he's finding an unsympathetic world, unwilling to give him a decent job or housing for himself, his girlfriend and her 14-year-old son as he tries to start over.
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Nomad
Nomad, 23, grew up between Kentucky and California, from abusive parents to grandparents, back to parents then a group home where his finished high school. After witnessing someone fatally caught in a woodchipper as a child, he developed paranoid schizophrenia and still suffers from it. He and his infant son weer kicked out of his father's home, then his mother took custody of the boy. Nomad doesn't trust anyone. Street people call him the philosopher because he writes poetry and tries to empathize with everyone.
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Joanne
Joanne, 47, usually has a big smile and a hug for everyone on the street. Adopted as an infant, raised in a military family, serving eight years in the US Navy herself, she was hit by a drunk driver once back in civilian life. Battling medical and PTSD issues seemed far away when I saw her, the morning after she'd been assaulted by another person on the street.
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Steven
Steven, 24, grew up in Fallbrook, never quite got along with a mother addicted to methadone, so he moved to Memphis to be near his father and work in construction. After his wife cheated on him, he left that world to return to San Diego, where he lasted just four days at his mother's place, and can't find a job. He and his girlfriend share a tent downtown and aren't sure what to do, now that she is pregnant.
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Tanya
Tanya, 44, was evicted from the room she was renting for two years, because the other tenants hadn't paid bills for months. She has health problems that make it hard for her to carry what few belongings she had after the sheriff's deputies impounded everything in the home. She's trying to stay away from the drug scene and an abusive relationship and not call on her adult children for help.
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Jeff
Jeff Anderson, 58, a US Navy veteran, drifted across the country for years before arriving in San Diego a month ago, landing on the grass next to the USS Midway Museum. He hopes to start his own business selling information products, so he can remain independent, make his own money, not rely on anyone else. Once he gets his own housing, he wants to get a couple of dogs for company.
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