Voices from the Street

My name is David, and I am a child of God. The name ‘David' means ‘love.’ I believe in love. I believe in happiness. I believe in kindness. I believe in living by what Maya Angelou said: ‘People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.’

I was born in 1955 and grew up in Inkster, near Dearborn, MI. I was the oldest of two sons. I grew up in the sixties; what a strange decade. I experienced the prejudices of being Black or, as they said back then, ‘negro.’ I remember watching the 1967 race riots in Detroit on the TV; and my mother said, ‘you are watching history.’ I didn’t realize it then. There was a lot of prejudice back then. Society thought we, as Black people, were dumb and stupid. That Black people did not know anything. They also felt that about the Chinese, Mexicans, etc. So much prejudice that I was kind of, not shielded, but my mother brought me up the right way. I never did go to Detroit a lot. Whenever I would go to school there would be guards…I thought, ‘why is it like this?’

My mother was a beautiful person. She was like me; she took care of people. She did a lot for the public school system and the Boy Scouts. I made a point a long time ago to take care of my mother like she took care of me. When you think about it, when you were born, your mom and dad were working, and they still had time to take care of you. So why is it that when they become old, you can't take care of them like they took care of you? So I made a promise to myself–I am going to take care of my mother and my father just like they took care of me. Having the opportunity to help wash my mother like she did when I was a baby - I would do that. Telling her that put a smile on her face.

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My father was abusive. He beat my mom. Whenever he would beat my mom, I would try to stop it. He gave her money to take care of us, but he would still be messing around.

A major event in my life was the day my father got shot. He got killed by his girlfriend. I will never forget that day, that morning. My father, my mother, and I were all in the kitchen eating pancakes. I cannot remember no other time when my father and I were sitting at the kitchen table eating breakfast together. It was kind of something weird because it was quiet, and he kept looking at me. And I was looking at him. We didn’t say much. And when he finished; I got up and said ‘I gotta go. I will see you guys later.’ My father got up to leave too. That night he got shot. His girlfriend, the woman who shot him, said that he had tried to break into her house. She got away with it. You see, my father was drunk and that’s why I told myself then that I would never cheat on my wife or my girlfriend. And I never have.

I loved to cook. I learned how to cook from my mother. She said, “Imma teach you everything a woman knows how to do except how to have a baby.”

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A while back I got a job at the Gandy Dancer. They hired me as a dishwasher, but I told them I could cook. They said ‘We are gonna hire you as a dishwasher first.’ The night they hired me, they ran out of bread. So the chef told me, ‘I need you to make me some bread.’ So I made the bread, and I never went back to washing dishes again. I made all the sauces there. I made all the soups, I made the bread. I cooked the meat. I kept the wait staff happy. When they came back to the kitchen, I would take their orders and make them stuff to eat.

One day I got hurt while working there. One of the female wait staff needed more napkins, towels, and tablecloths, which were stored up in the attic. I was a good guy; I wasn’t going to have that woman go up there and walk on the beams. I almost made it back, but I slipped and fell and my leg went through the attic floor. My leg was dangling from the ceiling. I was dangling there! Someone came to the office looking for me; they asked ‘are you okay?’ and I said, ‘Yeah, I am ok.’ But I wasn’t okay. When I got home that night, my leg was huge. It was swollen like a balloon.

The Gandy Dancer did not want me to sue them for my injury, so they had me sign this piece of paper saying I wouldn’t. They said that they would take care of me; they would pay my medical bills. So I signed. They paid for my operation and rehab. And to this day, my leg feels like it did not really even have damage.

When I went to see if I could get my job back, the chef said, “Oh! You’re the one who fell through the attic?!” And everyone in the kitchen… looked at me. He said “Uh, I don’t think we can hire you.” I think they were afraid to hire me. Maybe they were afraid that I would fake getting hurt or say I got hurt so I could sue them. I don’t think they wanted to take that chance.

I was a care provider for a while. And it wasn’t about the money. I just wanted to make people feel wanted. Sometimes people are in that situation, and no one will come visit them. They have a homecare provider but they don’t really talk to them. They really treat them wrong. They let them stay in the bed all day in their own waste.

One person I worked for, he was in a car accident; so his family asked me if I would move in and assist for 24 hours. And they paid me $300 a week. He had a big old hole in his bottom. So one day the doctor and nurse came over to show me how to change his dressings because I had to clean his pressure ulcer and wrap it back up and everything. He went to the doctor, and the doctor asked him, ‘who wrapped this [wound]?’ It looked like a professional job. And he said that my careworker did it. The doctor told him that I did a really good job.

Camp Take Notice (CTN) was a self-governing, grassroots tent community of people experiencing homelessness located in Ann Arbor. The camp offered an “alternative approach to the traditional government and private systems that provide shelter and basic resources for the homeless. CTN’s emphasis on community among camp members and faith-based organizations was what set it apart from other services.” However, CTN was disbanded by the Michigan Department of Transportation in 2012.

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I was working at the time, and one of my friends was staying at Camp Take Notice. I went to visit him one day; there were 10 people living there at the time. He told me if I ever needed a place, I could come there. They provided tents and sleeping bags, and no one would bother you there. Two weeks later I lost my job, so I went to stay at CTN.

The first night they gave me a small tent. The next day I met Peggy, a local CTN supporter and homeless advocate. I learned that Peggy was helping supply things to the camp, including food. So I volunteered to help. I told Peggy about my situation, and she said that I could stay there.

No one initially knew that the camp was there. Somehow the news found out–Ann Arbor news, TV stations. They wanted to interview people. So Peggy found me and said, ‘I want you to speak for the camp. I want you to say some words.’ So I did. I knew she was a lawyer, so I was amazed she thought I spoke well. During that time I got close to Peggy, and we became kinda like friends. We are better friends now than then.

The Michigan Department of Transportation made us move out of the camp. They gave everyone a year's housing voucher. During that time, Peggy wanted me to speak at city council meetings to tell them about the homeless here in America. I will never forget; I was so nervous. I told the council to not be prejudiced against the homeless. Any one of us can be homeless. I don’t understand why we are the richest country in the world, yet we have homelessness in America. We would rather throw food away than give it to someone who really needs it. We would rather spend billions of dollars to go to space rather than taking care of the homeless. If we took care of people here in America, we would have no problem helping the rest of the world. But how can we help the rest of the world, if we cannot take care of people in America?

For me, homelessness means you don’t have a place to stay. You don’t have a stable place to go. You could be working. You could have a job. But you don’t have affordable housing. You don’t have someplace where you can go home. You don’t have enough money to feed yourself. That’s what I think homelessness is.

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Homelessness made me a stronger, more appreciative person. A student volunteer at Mercy House came up to tell me that I was the most optimistic person she had ever met. I told her, thank you so much. I’ve learned that we ain't gonna be here forever. I am not gonna spend my time on earth being mad or angry at nobody. I am going to have a smile on my face and hopefully I can live until maybe 100, 110 so I can have my face on a Smucker’s jar.

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One time, I met an older woman downtown while I was living at Camp Take Notice. I was talking with her, and everything was good until some of my camp friends came up to me looking all raggedy and smelling like smoke. They spoke with me and they left. And then she looked at me and asked, ‘How do you know those people?’ Those people? I looked at her and said ‘I am one of those people. I live at the same camp they do. I am sleeping outside in a tent just like they are.’ And she looked at me. And I wanted to say to her– ‘why, is it because I don’t look homeless? Because I try to keep myself up? I don’t dress like a bum?’

If you walk around like you don’t care about yourself, how do you expect other people to care about you? I never smelled, I wasn’t smelly. She looked at me like–you don't look like you’re homeless. That kind of confirmed that you never know what people are.

There’s a lot of other spots that are prejudiced against people who are homeless; they don’t want to have nothing to do with them. Or some of the churches say you can stay here at night, one night, and give you a couple peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. But that’s it, then you’re on your way. Mercy House gives you the opportunity to make you feel like you are needed, you are wanted, you are here for a reason. People fill you with self esteem. You can do laundry there. It is friendly. You can relax for a while. It is peaceful and you can get your thoughts together.

I believe that in anything in life, if you believe in the Lord, in any situation He puts you in, you have the tools and ability to handle it. It’s all how you handle it. It’s all how you look at it. You could say, ‘well I am homeless, I am not gonna be about nothing; I am gonna go down.’ When it is storming outside, it’s cloudy, it's raining, it’s thundering. Maybe it goes on for a few hours. But then what happens? It stops. The sun comes out again. That’s how life is sometimes. If you go through things, it all depends on how you handle it. It’s not going to last forever; you will get out of it. You won’t be in that situation forever. This is only temporary. The way I handle it, I have to handle it in a positive way. I am not going to be in this situation forever. I am resilient!

David appears in these videos about Camp Take Notice:

I was born in 1964 in Nakhon Sawan, Thailand, on my dad’s rice farm. I was the third child; my mother had two boys before me and two boys and one sister after. Two of my brothers died as children. When I was around three or four years old, my dad told me to care for my older brother who was seven years old at the time. My brother was not a regular kid. He had an intellectual disability. He and I would roam around our rice farm. One day, there were heavy rains, and the farm flooded. He fell into an area with water over his head. I tried to scoop his head up above the water, but I couldn’t do it well because I was so small, and he was much bigger than me. I had to leave him in order to run and find my mom and dad to bring him out of the water. When I came back, his body had sunk down under the water. He had drowned.

My other younger brother also died. At school there was a swimming pool. He fell in and did not know how to swim. If I had gone to help him, I would have drowned, too. So, I decided to not go in after him. I went to go get someone for help, but it was too late. He drowned, too. My childhood was very difficult. 

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When I was 3 or 4 years old, I would help take care of our buffalo. One time when I was riding the buffalo, I saw an airplane above my head. I thought to myself: ‘One day I can travel in an airplane.’ I did not dream that I could move out of my country at this time.

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When I was five, my uncle, who was married to my mom’s sister, molested me. He was smart. He bought me a cookie, and I was happy to have it. He pulled my pants down and took me up and down, up and down. He told me ‘not to tell nobody.’ I was so young. So, after that, I told myself, “It’s not right.” The day he molested me; he told his younger brother-in-law that he had molested me. So, the young brother-in-law molested me also. I was in shock. I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t tell anybody.

The next morning, I was so scared. I looked into my uncle’s eyes–and told him with my eyes–I knew what you did to me. Then he was afraid of me. He didn’t do it no more. I held this inside for so long because I couldn’t believe he did that with a kid like me. I could not say anything. If I said something, they [my family] would think I lied. They don’t believe anybody. 

When I was 7 years old, my mom and dad took me to go live in the jungle for three years. My dad owned land but was cheated and lost a lot of money, so that’s why he moved us to the jungle because you don’t spend money there. My parents grew corn and chiles. I was happy in the jungle, because I had all kinds of animals. One time, I saw a tiger. My mom and dad were out in the cornfield, and they left me in our little hut alone. The tiger came by our hut; I was so scared. I grabbed a blanket and covered myself and peeked from under the blanket. I peed in my pants. 

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When I was living in the jungle with my mom, dad, and brother, we walked from 4 or 5 o’clock in the morning to go buy some groceries–some sugar, some chiles, whatever. We had to walk all day long and would come back at night. I was scared so bad because you never knew what the journey would be like. 

When I was 10, my family moved to the town of Nong Chang. My mom got pregnant, and she did not want the kid; she wanted to get an abortion. I overheard her conversation with the doctor– “Well, you are 5 or 6 months along; you may both die, mother and baby, if you get an abortion.” I begged my mom– “Don’t kill the baby, I don't want both of you to die. I will take care of it.” My mom asked me, “Will you quit school?” and I told her yes. So, I quit school and took care of my brother when he was a baby.

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My dad could do anything–fix motorcycles, repair guns, fix bicycles–by himself. When I was 15 or 16, my dad got in trouble. He was doing gun repairs but had no license. He went to jail. When my dad went to jail, my relationship with my mom worsened. She tried to beat me up. She said all kinds of things. “You wanna be a b****? You wanna be a whore?” She said all kinds of things, not good things. I didn’t want that. I ran out. I ran away from her. 

At that time, I was selling fruit in a bus station. There was a guy who really liked me [at the bus station]. His name was Sak. But I didn’t like him. I was a kid! So, I asked Sak to stay with him [because I had nowhere to go]. That guy was crazy about sex. And I really don’t know anything about this, you know? He took me and went to rub me. I have no idea how to get out. I didn’t want to go back home because my mom always said bad words [to me]. 

I stayed with Sak in Pattaya, a tourist city with a nearby beach. Sak worked as a construction worker there and always had sex with me. Always, always. I wanted to get away from him. But I couldn’t because I didn’t know where I was. I never got out of the house. One day, I found out that Sak stole clothes. I found out and told myself, “He is not a good man.”

My dad’s mother, my grandma, died, and she came to talk to me [in my mind]. She told me to get away from this guy; he’s not a good man. She was worried about me. She told me to get out of there very fast. I thought ‘I will be sweet with him, I will say, honey, I go buy cigarettes, you need something?’ But instead, I went to the police station and explained to them that he had stolen clothes. Later, the police came and took Sak to jail. He did not know that I had gone to the police; I had to protect myself. The police asked me where the clothes were. I showed the police everything. And I stayed by myself for a while. 

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I would go [sell sex] to tourists from all over the world. I would not go [do sex work] with every man, no, I love myself too much. I felt bad when men would molest me. I felt yucky, you know.

Sometimes I wanted to [exchange sex for money with men] because I had no money and only two years of education. When I came out of the jungle, I went to school. But I didn't learn much because my brain had been damaged from so many things– my brothers died; I'd been molested. So many things. But I’m lucky because I have my grandpa to help me out. He is my grandpa, Shiva. He opened my ear to hear whatever he says to me. 

One evening in December when I was 25, a car ran over me. The German guy who was driving–he was drunk. When I was on my back with the tire on top of me–my mind whispered, ‘Shiva [Deity in Hinduism/Buddhism], the tire is coming for my head!’ The first tire had already missed, running over my leg and back. The other tire was coming–my mind screamed: ‘Shiva, Shiva, what can I do?’ He told me to move my head to the left side. The second tire also missed.

Shiva tried to help me. He sent me to sleep, but my ears still listened. I was taken to the hospital. They checked X-rays–nothing was broken. No bones, no bleeding–nothing! I had a small scab, but that was all!

I met my ex-husband at a bar in December 1992. He had come to Thailand on vacation but worked as a medic in the US Army Special Forces. I don’t know what happened, but I liked this man so much–I have no idea why. I saw him again the next time he came to Thailand in 1993, when he was training American and Thai soldiers. 

We did not have a wedding ceremony, but my ex did buy a beautiful pink wedding dress made with Thai silk that I wore for pictures. I did not tell my mom and dad that we got married or that he bought me the dress. I didn’t want them to see; they’d think it was too expensive. 

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We were married in 1993. In 1994, I moved with him to Okinawa, Japan. In Okinawa I cooked Thai food to sell to the soldiers in the barracks–shrimp fried rice, beef fried rice. Then in 1995, I moved to the United States, to Tacoma, WA, where we stayed with my ex-husband’s mother. My son was born in 1995; my daughter in 1996. I also sold food in Tacoma, but whatever I would earn my ex would take away from me. I fought with him all the time. He became more tight, tight, tight with money. 

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My ex would get drunk and mad often. I would stay up all night because he was crazy and physically abusive to me. I never knew what he would do to me or the kids. Sometimes I would not brush my teeth or shower because I was so tired; I would forget to take care of myself because I was worried about so many things.

We got a divorce in 2004. I moved out and went to live at the YMCA shelter with my kids. I slept in the same room as my children; I slept on the floor and my kids slept in the bed. In less than a year, I moved into new housing. I did my best to care for my children.

On October 2, 2009, I had a stroke. At that time, I had so many problems in my head–I was trying to go to school and trying to work two jobs. I had one job working in an Indian gas station cooking food and another job as a housekeeper cleaning. 

That day, I had taken my daughter with me to work cleaning. I started having a problem with my hand. Initially I thought it was from the cleaning chemicals. I would go to grab something, and the object would fall from my hand. I had no energy. I tried again and again, 5 or 6 times. 

I thought–something has happened to me, but I did not want to tell my boss. At that time, I did not know what was going on, so I drove home. When I was driving home, my right side stopped working; I could not break. I thought back to when I was run over by the car when I was 25 years old, and I thought–it’s come back! I hit the shed in my backyard because I couldn’t break, but I didn’t care. I felt so tired and went upstairs to go to sleep.

A few minutes later my daughter came to my room and said there was a security man knocking on our door who wanted to talk to me. He asked me for ID and said he was going to call the police. When the police came, they asked, “Ma’am, what happened to you?” I told them what happened, and they said, “you are having a stroke!” I stood up and then immediately fell down. So, they called an ambulance. 

I stayed one month in the hospital. I could not move. I had to poop and pee on the bed. I was only able to look at the ceiling. 

My friend and neighbor across the street helped me out; they helped care for my kids because I didn’t trust my ex. After a while, I started to do physical therapy exercises. I started walking, squeezing with my hands–all kinds of things. And I got a little better although my kids went to live with my ex after the stroke. They left because my ex had money, and my kids did not want to stay with their poor mother.

In 2019 we moved to Michigan, but things got complicated living with [my friend and her son], so I decided to leave; it would be better to be homeless and free. So, I started staying at Delonis on November 7, 2021. I initially slept on the floor, then I was able to get a bed on the fourth floor after a couple of weeks. I stayed at Delonis for about 4 months until I got my apartment on Feb 25, 2022.

I have let my suffering go. Grandpa says: “you have to let everything go. Because everything does not belong to us. When we die–what do we have?” Just open your heart and do whatever you can.

My grandpa says: “Don’t wait for no one. Just keep going on and on and on. If you do good things, the good things will come back to you.”

I want to write my story down. I want to write it in all kinds of languages. To help people out. When I get rich, I am going to do good things for whoever needs help. 

I was born August 27, 1959, in Hyland Park, MI. I was the fourth of seven children in my family. We moved to Dearborn when I was in elementary school where I attended William Fort Elementary school and Woodsworth Junior High. I graduated from Fordson High School in 1978.

Everything was great in my family and in Dearborn. We grew up riding bikes in the neighborhood. My mother was a stay-at home mom; dinner was always at 6pm. My father worked two jobs–at Xerox and at a carnival–to support us all. The only downside to my childhood was that in being the middle child, I did not get as much attention as my siblings did. The older ones got cars and stuff, but I didn’t get nothing.

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I first started drinking when I was 10 years old. When I was in elementary school, I would fill up a water bottle full of my parents’ scotch from our kitchen cabinet and bring it to school to drink.

By age 16, I was regularly in the bar.

Both my parents drank. When I would come home for lunch during school, my mom would make me go buy her a half pint of scotch. That’s why I always got fed good at lunch time. My mother’s [alcohol use disorder] got worse and worse to the point that my dad started limiting her drinking to just twice a week. My dad always drank a scotch and soda every day when he came home from work. I thought drinking was normal. Work, drink, sleep, repeat. I thought I was a functioning alcoholic until I realized the more you drink, the more it comes out of your pores. Once I got into the habit, I just kept drinking for fun. That’s why I have cirrhosis now.

I’ve worked all my life since I was 13 years old. My first job was as a dishwasher at Piper’s Restaurant on Joy Road in Detroit. Then I was a baker at Hamilton Meat Pie Company, where I made pasties. I worked there for about 10 years. Then they went all automatic, so I went from working the oven to working in the freezer. After a while, they didn’t need me no more.

I then managed two gas stations for 5 years. I also did a lot of construction. My buddy John and I would do cinder block walls. I saw him fall from the scaffolding 25 feet up, and he died immediately. He was my best friend.

At around the same time, my grandmother died. That’s the first time I see my father cry. I was 21 years old when she died. My grandmother was a special person in my life. She lived in the upstairs apartment in our duplex in Dearborn and would always take me to Hudson’s downtown to go shopping. When I was sick, she would bring me Sucrets lozenges and take care of me.

Losing my friend and grandmother in the same year drove me to start drinking heavily. I lost faith in God. Drinking helped me stop thinking about losing them. That’s the only thing I liked about it. I was mad at God for taking both my best friend and my grandmother. “Why did He take my good people away from me?”

I met my sweetheart, Donna, in high school. She lived right across the street from me. One day, I asked if I could carry her books home for her. That’s how it all started.

We began dating and graduated high school together. I found out that she was being molested by her stepfather, so I had to kick his a** and move her out. I got arrested for that–assault and battery on a person.

We moved to Oakman apartments when we were 18. We have been together ever since. Donna and I moved from place to place in Michigan–to Detroit, to Ypsilanti. We had one son together, Tim, who was born December 21, 1992.

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I started getting tickets for drunk driving. I also got busted for home invasion because I needed the money. I got sentenced and had a tether on my leg. A guy I was working with wanted me to join him in Arizona; so I decided to go with him to find work. I cut my tether off; I did not like my probation officer anyway.

I lived apart from Donna for 10 years while I was in Arizona. I would still call her every morning. I was homeless and lived underneath a parking garage there, sleeping on cardboard. I got into smoking crack; I think because that’s what the people I was hanging out with were doing. I would also steal aluminum because it was good money. I was stabbed while I was living there; people would drive up in cars to rob the homeless people. When you’re sleeping outside, you have to get drunk to be able to fall asleep.

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I ran into a guy who wanted to buy heroin; so we made a deal. I would buy heroin for him because I knew where to get it, and in exchange, he would give me a job working for him. I traveled around with him building playgrounds at McDonalds. We would work at night while the McDonald’s was closed. It was so cool because we had a free run of the whole place.

Then I went to jail for 5 years for receiving and concealing stolen property in Arizona. I stole a lathe and pawned it. When I was released from prison, I came across a streetwalker who I didn’t know, who told me that Donna was dead. I had not been in contact with her during this time; so I got worried and returned to Michigan. Donna was sick, so I came back to take care of her. She had Type 1 diabetes, and it caught up with her. She had to get both a kidney and pancreas transplant. She had dementia, too.

When I got back to Michigan, I was arrested as I had outstanding arrest warrants. Fortunately, the judge dismissed all charges against me since it had been over 12 years since I had been in the state.

Donna’s mother came to stay with us in Ypsilanti. I did not like her too much, but that’s mother-in-laws you know. She treated Donna like s***. When all of the stuff was going on when Donna was being molested by her stepfather, she did not do nothing; she did not believe Donna or anything. It really pissed me off. That’s why I had to step in and do something.

Donna’s medical problems worsened. She was admitted to the hospital; her kidneys were failing, and I think she may have had cancer too. We got a call from the doctors saying “you better get your a** up here; she ain’t gonna make it.” So Tim and I went up there. I spent a couple of nights with her. I was not gonna let her die in the hospital. Hospice gave us a bed to bring home to our apartment in Ypsilanti. I took the couch we had in the living room down to the basement and put her bed in the front room. I took care of her, cleaned her. And I layed with her for the rest of her life. She stayed with us at home for a week and a half until she passed on April 21, 2016.

I had to wake up Tim to tell him the news. He was only 23 years old. That’s why he still keeps in touch with me– I’m the only family he’s got.

When hospice came to collect her body, I did not want them disrespecting her. I made them comb her hair and put on a nice dress. I made sure she looked good before they took her away.

When Donna passed, she told me she wanted to be cremated. I still have her ashes because I already told Tim that when I die, I also want to be cremated so that he can spread Donna’s and my ashes together. I really don’t care where. I would want my ashes dispersed up North, tell you the truth, but I don’t think Donna would like that.

Donna was on Section 8 [HUD housing voucher program]. After she passed, my son Tim and I were evicted from her apartment. The apartment was not in my or Tim’s names, and Donna and I hadn’t legally married. Then, from what I hear, they had a garage sale on the front lawn of all our stuff. You wouldn’t believe the stuff I left there–our washer, dryer.

Tim stayed with his girlfriend, and I went to crash at Delonis. But, back then, Delonis used to require a breathalyzer test upon entry. If you blew numbers, they would not let you in. I always blew numbers, so I ended up sleeping on the streets, in the park, parking lots, or parking garages around Ann Arbor. You just have to watch where you sleep–there are idiots out there who want to hurt and rob you.

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At the beginning of the pandemic I went back to Delonis. I hated it there. Then I got the opportunity to join the shelter in rotation at the AARC. This church (AARC) was so nice as well as all the volunteers. I prayed to God every day. Every morning and every night. And I prayed for the volunteers, too. I prayed for the whole church for everything. I had never been so blessed in my entire life.

A couple years ago I started the tradition of releasing two balloons into the sky on the day my wife Donna died. I signed Tim’s and my name on the balloons. I whispered to her ‘we love you, we miss you,’ then let the balloons go. I watched the two balloons drift up into the clouds. I know Donna is in Heaven; so I cannot screw up anymore. She ain’t gonna meet me in Hell, and I want to be back with her. We were together for 35 years, and believe me, I miss her so much. There is not a day that goes by that I don’t think about her.

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My parents passed away ten years ago. My father passed first. I went to see my father and he told me ‘I love you, now go kick a**.’ After he passed, I went to see my mother. I knew she wouldn’t last long. They were married for over 50 years. She would still sit in her chair and talk to my dad. She passed in her sleep not long after my dad died. She is buried right next to my dad, which is cool.

I’d rather pass in my sleep, too. I don’t want to wake up dead. I don’t want to be in pain or nothing. Unless I am at the mortuary–I’d wake up and ask ‘where’s the bar?’

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I’ve had a good life. I am not complaining about my life. If I had to do it all over again, there are a couple things I might change. Like drinking and smoking. Those are hard things to quit.

I was born in 1959 and was the oldest of three boys growing up in Adrian, MI. But they always say that I am the youngest brother, because I am the best looking in my family. That’s what they say!

I grew up with my dad helping the migrants coming from the south. Most of the minorities who had come from the south had gone into the car business like my dad. He was a plant manager for Dura Automotive Services. His parents were farmworkers. His father was from Mexico but his mother wasn’t. She [my father’s mother] was a good woman from what I hear; very strong. My grandfather was a bad alcoholic. My mom is also of Mexican heritage and is originally from Brownsville, TX.

My mom and dad were affiliated with the Cesar Chavez movement in the 1970s in Michigan, Indiana, and Ohio. Cesar Chavez has been at our house two or three times; his younger brother Richard Chavez has been there, too. My mom and other women involved with Adrian’s affiliate of the United Farmworkers labor union cooked for them. So I grew up with all the politics of the 70s.

Growing up, I had to picket at grocery stores for 10 hours a week, because they were spraying pesticides on the farmworkers and the women were giving birth to deformed kids; people were getting cancer. We managed to close two grocery stores in Adrian, MI. If I didn’t picket, I couldn’t go to baseball practice. I hated it. You were out there with a sign, and all my friends from elementary school would see me and ask ‘what are you doing out there, dummy?’ They’d make fun of me.

At first this all kind of f***ed me up, but my Ma goes, ‘Well son, try to explain to them what it is you’re doing. That’s all you can do. One of these days you will understand why you did it.’ Now I know why they made me do it. That was just my parents’ beliefs, and they were just trying to show me in their own way how to be a good person.

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I see my dad in myself, and I love that. I learned a lot from him. My dad was a good speaker and a good listener. He helped a lot of people in the 70s and 80s. My dad was also a marine. He was like a drill sergeant. That is why I make my bed every morning.

I got a way with words, too, like my dad. I learned how to speak to people from my dad and learned generosity and peace from my mom. My mom is a very peaceful person; she loves children. That is why she was a teacher’s aide for 30 plus years in Adrian Public Schools. She is just a beautiful woman. She is a good listener because there were a lot of times when kids would not have money to go on a school trip, so my mom and dad would put their pennies together and they’d pack a lunch for them and pay for their trip. And there were a lot of times when my dad got on the phone with his friends for help and everybody pitched in to help us, too.

After graduating high school, I went to Western Michigan University for 2 years and was studying general ed. I wanted to be a sportscaster, like Bernie [Smilovitz] on Channel 4. I’ve always loved sports. I lettered in both baseball and football in high school. I lived in the athletic dorm and tried to make the Western Michigan baseball team and was the second to last one to make the cut.

My brother caught meningitis while I was in college and was at the University of Michigan hospital for 3 months. I stayed with him since both of my parents were working; I just slept there with my brother. I got behind on classes at Western and never went back.

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After that I lived in Houston and worked in the oil fields. My cousin called me up [for the job]; I left on Friday, got there on a Sunday, and I started work on a Monday. I worked for 15 to 16 dollars an hour. I was working in an oil refinery as a maintenance worker. I worked like a dog; 6am to midnight. My ex, my boy’s mom, had just gotten pregnant. I could have stayed here in Michigan and worked in a factory, but working in a factory is just, you are in one spot, it's repetitive all day. I couldn’t do that.

In Texas, I played semi-pro baseball. I played with guys who should have played ball in college. I took it seriously; I was very competitive. I was good at it–not bragging or nothing. I had a good arm. I probably drank a little too much and probably did a little too much speed at that time, but I went to work every Monday. I played four nights a week and then had tournaments every weekend. I would sometimes pull up to work in my softball uniform and go to the bathroom to change because I would play until the wee hours on Sunday then drive 2-3 hours back to Houston. I slept in my car a lot. It was fun though.

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When my ex left me in 1983 or 1984–this beautiful blonde woman with bright blue sapphires for eyes–I fell apart. I went to the bar and drank and drank and drank and then tried to drive home. I got into an accident and ended up in jail for a while. That experience completely derailed my life. I got into the party scene–cocaine, heroin–I burned through more money than you could believe on drugs, booze, and women.

I was in Houston for 11 or 12 years before I came back to Michigan in ‘93. I had to, otherwise I would have gotten killed over there. It got very bad. I was into drugs big time. I was bringing hundreds of pounds of marijuana to Michigan for my cousins. My cousin’s wife owned the only

weigh station in the Rio Grande Valley. Vehicles coming from Mexico would go through that weigh station; there were thousands of dollars worth of drugs coming through. I would pick up a vehicle and drive it up to Michigan or Iowa. I would probably drive twice a month and was paid $5000 a load. It was all marijuana. This was when the good marijuana was from Mexico during the 70s and 80s. When my cousins got into coke, I did not get into that. If you got caught with a lot of coke, you’d get a life sentence. Finally my dad told my cousins: “I don’t want Daniel doing that no more.”

Every morning I wake up and I think–I am a drug addict. It’s just hard. I’ve overdosed three times in my life. People around me are dying of an overdose all the time.

I’ve been doing drugs since I was 14 years old, starting out with coke. I did not start shooting up heroin until I was 50 years old. At the time I was staying with a girl in Toledo, OH, where I was working as a caretaker for a family, and she got me caught up in it. Once you shoot dope, you get a euphoria—a feeling that goes all through your body. It’s a really, really good rush. It’s hard to get away from that feeling once you experience it. When you withdraw from opioids you feel like you have the flu. I have gotten to the point where I would have to use it to just feel normal, to not feel sick.

I have been to rehab three times, twice in Toledo and once in Michigan. I am in an outpatient program right now with St. Joe’s. The meetings are on Zoom due to COVID, which is really hard for me to connect with. I really wish they had meetings in person.

A couple years ago, I got a needle stuck in my arm [while injecting]. I delayed going to the hospital; I was so embarrassed. I walked to the emergency room because my arm had swelled up.

A nurse–I don’t know where she was from or if she knew I was Hispanic or nothing, but all she did was talk about how the Mexicans got away with this and got away with that ….I almost said that you need to shut the f up, don’t you know I am 100% Mexican. And it was humiliating because the first thing the medical team asked was, ‘how did you get the needle stuck in your arm?’ Umm duh? Could you say it any freaking louder? Everyone could hear everything through those hospital curtains.

Then my doctor came in and scolded me like crazy. He said stuff like ‘Aren’t you too old to be using drugs?’ and stuff like that. I bit my tongue and took a good ass chewing. I talked to my nurse and told her I did not want that doctor to return to my room otherwise I would kick him out. I never saw him again during the week I was in the hospital. I needed surgery to remove the needle and IV antibiotics for the bacteria in my blood.

I had been working doing vinyl flooring and tiles until the COVID-19 pandemic began, and my boss was not able to pay me anymore. I had been staying at my cousin’s apartment, but he kicked me out. I went into work on a Monday morning, and he goes, ‘there’s a homeless shelter around the corner–why don’t you start staying there.’ And I was like– ‘what, what did you say?’ And he said, ‘yeah, the homeless shelter. You’ve been staying here long enough.’

Kicking me out of his house was the biggest favor my cousin could have done for me. I’m glad that happened. It woke me up a lot. I started sleeping at the Delonis Center, but I hated it. We were squished together like sardines, and the smell was unbearable–dirty socks, booze, and crusty men. As a light sleeper I couldn’t handle it. So I jumped at the opportunity to come join the rotating shelter at the Ann Arbor Reform Church. I met a lot of good people at AARC at the church and the volunteers. Being homeless, in a way, was a good experience for me–life is just about learning. Nothing is perfect. Take it as it comes.

I learned to cook from my mom. I went to school for 2 hours at Adrian High school then I’d get out early to help my mom. My mom worked as a teacher’s aide, so I’d end up working three hours of the day with her at the elementary school. I got high school credit for it. I would then go home while she was still working. She told me to chop this up, cut that up.

I helped my aunt and uncle with their catering company, too, off and on for thirty years. We got a lot of our products in Detroit at E&L Supermercado in Mexicantown. We would buy 100 lbs bags of beans and rice and then of course we would buy Mexican pastries.

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When I was staying at the Ann Arbor Reform Church shelter, I volunteered to cook because I liked it. I wasn’t getting paid. I could go up there and get lost for hours. Cooking relaxes me; it is part of my therapy. I have been around food all my life, authentic Mexican food. I tell everybody, cooking is an art. Every cook is different. A lot of how you cook, which is kinda crazy, depends on what kind of mood you are in. Cooking can release endorphins. And I believe in that. It’s just how food is.

At the time, my ex was supposed to move down from Toledo to live with me. She was just lying through her teeth though. My friend called to say ‘hey man, she is staying with another dude; she’s dating another guy.’ So, I went through that s*** and I was like you know what, Gary and I kicked it. He was the first person I talked to at AARC, and we were the same age. We talked about Red Wing sports and stuff like that. We just kicked it and developed a friendship. And I thought, ‘maybe this guy would be a good roommate?’ And that’s what started the whole thing.

Ian connected us to Johnny from Avalon Housing. That man helped us a lot. He got the wheels going and boom! Before we knew it, in about 3 months we had a place. And there’s typically a waiting list for Section 8 housing vouchers for years. But we each got one and moved into an apartment in Ypsilanti.

Avalon Housing: https://avalonhousing.org/

I like helping people; I always have. We are basically running a halfway house here [at our apartment]. We’ve helped maybe 15 people over the past 2 years that we have been living here. People find out about us through word on the street, mostly because of me since I feed them. People will come through and ask me if I have anything to eat. So I will make them food even if it’s just a sandwich. Only takes a minute. Then we will sit here and watch a movie or something. And I’ll try to talk to them a little bit. I tell them about my life’s experiences, what happened to me, and about my drug addiction. I tell them that I still have problems with it. I will always be a drug addict. A lot of it has to do with who you hang out with. A lot of people [who use drugs] get lost because they don’t have no one to talk to. The way the system is right now, especially with COVID, a lot of institutions aren’t there for help. I think in the last 3 weeks, I have heard of three people who have passed away and there are two others in the hospital for overdose. It’s an epidemic, the fentanyl.

I grew up in Berkley, MI, a northern suburb of Detroit in Oakland county. I grew up very poor in a white, hillbilly family, a pretty racist family. Before the age of 10, I had already witnessed someone die of an overdose–my stepfather. I was sexually abused by my mom and our neighbor. I was physically abused. I witnessed my grandfather dying in front of me. Growing up, I just had this huge hole of needing

There are people who have experienced so much abuse that they have no room for empathy or for compassion. They’re very angry. They can be very destructive and abusive. That is one response to abuse, one end of the spectrum. But there is also the other end of the spectrum–you can see someone’s pain and feel every bit of it. And I think some people, like myself, are given the ability to feel someone’s pain. And a lot of that has to do with your environment, but I also think part of it is naturally who you are. As a victim, my mom was super abusive to me when I was a baby and that could have caused me to become a super abusive person. However, as a kid, I had to take care of the people around me: I would clean up my dad after a drunken brawl or help take care of my grandmother – who was my best friend – who had a lot of health issues. I was making eggs for myself starting at 6 years old, for example. I had to be my own parent. Being a parent is just providing someone with needs, love.

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In my first job when I was 14 years old, I worked at a restaurant and met this older Black woman who just made me feel like I was her kid. She looked after me. This one night she invited me to a barbeque at her house in Detroit. I had never been on a bus, and I had never been to Detroit, alone especially. She drew up this map – ‘walk up to Woodward, jump on this bus, tell the bus driver you need to get off here; I live in the corner house.’ And I did that. And I was probably the only White person at this large barbeque. But they just welcomed me – here’s food, a hug, which was really accepting. And I think from that moment on I didn’t see color in people. I just saw acceptance, love, and friendship, which made me an oddball in my family.

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I became a parent when I was 18 or 19. It was not easy for me to have a relationship with my child. I was in my late teens and early 20s trying to be a parent in this insane judicial system that expected me to have short hair, not have any jewelry on, wear a buttoned up shirt, stand up straight, you know that kind of thing. I went through every measure I could to wear the hat that I needed, to play that role. When I look back on it, ‘I wore so many different hats in one day.’ I had a work hat, a parent hat, a hat for my lover, my friends, and my family. And they were all very different. After years of doing that, I realized that my brain can only handle so much of not being authentic to myself.

Looking back, I felt different than everyone else. At school, I was bullied and I was made fun of because I was different. The difference was that I was not the person matching the body. And then when I was a teenager, I realized I wanted to be a parent because I have this enormous amount of desire to provide a child all the things I didn’t get. I feel like as a neglected child, there are different ends of the spectrum – you're either going to continue the neglect, continue being an abusive parent, or you have an enormous amount of desire to be different from what you were given. And that was me. I wanted to be a parent to 30 kids and make their lives so much better. I think of the humans that I come in contact with as all of that. I realize that ‘a kid’ is just an age. There is no limit on the need to be shown something different from what they’re used to.

I was always hunting for people to be empathetic towards me…the outcast, the most vulnerable, the most colorful person. I was attracted to them and they were attracted to me. I felt good making others feel good about themselves.

I have a genuine understanding of what it's like to be abused, to have lived through all the yuckiness in the world. I have experienced all the yuckiness any human can suffer, so I know what it feels like. When you think of the worst parts of humanity, I have experienced it. True empathy is having experienced that yuckiness yourself. For me, empathy is having no judgment. Seeing someone and not judging them at all for anything.

After having a couple of years of mental breakdowns, not being able to function, and having suicidal ideation every day, I knew something had to change. But even taking the step to go to the hospital was super huge. I met a social worker at the hospital who had been doing that kind of work for years, so I felt very confident that she knew what she was talking about. She told me a few things that I will never forget and that have stuck with me: ‘It’s okay to love people from a distance; and that ‘I was a survivor and needed to be true to myself.’ I had never looked at myself as a survivor and a switch just clicked. It’s all about perspective–I had survived life’s tragedies. She changed my perspective.

I walked out of the hospital and gradually realized I had no one in my life to lean on. I had already cut off my communication with my family, for all the right reasons. My parents for sure. I felt that I needed to walk away from everyone and then reconnect with my uncle and grandmother. So, I just met this guy online and as this broken, vulnerable person, I fell for him because he was saying all the right things. I was living with him for almost a year and a half, and I didn’t go anywhere. I was psychologically and physically abused, which was scary.

While I was staying with this guy in Hyland park, I went to the doctor because I thought I had a sinus infection. I was sitting in the room and the doctor walked in, who doesn’t usually have the best bedside manner, and as soon as he touched my cheek I jumped off the table because it hurt so bad. And then came the questions and the tears. I am crying to the doctor, who showed me compassion in that moment, and made me get my jaw X-rayed, showing that I had a fracture. He helped connect me with people for help, and we would have conversations over the next few months about how to get out of my abusive situation. Every couple of weeks, if I had a few moments alone, I would call the [domestic violence] hotline. They’d just give me little pointers like, making sure I have a backpack. I was still completely scared to do anything.

On July 13, the same day as my grandma’s birthday, my abuser broke a lot of things that I owned, punched me, it was a big, ugly thing that turned into the last time [this would happen to me]. Once he left, I laid down by the exit door. At 12:30 at night, I heard him knock on the window–this was part of the psychological control, where he would knock on the window so I would have 30 seconds of fear before he walked into the apartment. So I heard the knock, jumped up and grabbed my little bag, and I ran out the door. I ran and ran and ran, almost 2 miles.

I met a woman at this 24 hour diner. She asked me ‘what's going on with you, honey?’ with this Southern accent and charm that was familiar and comforting to me. That was also the first time I said “Gracie” publicly out loud. And she told me to come see her tomorrow. I went in the next night after walking around all day. She offered for me to take a nap in her car while she worked, and handed me an envelope that had enough money to get me 4 nights in the motel across the street, that she and her co-workers had scrounged together.

That gave me hope. I did some gross things to maintain more motel space. I was daily calling the domestic violence shelter in the city of Wayne, and there were no beds available, no beds available. I struggled for 2 weeks at this motel. Then on Monday morning, I called the shelter and they had a bed open. So I took the city bus to Wayne, and that is when I went into the Domestic Violence shelter and spent 45 days there. I met this mom and 2 kids who wanted me to come live with her and nanny her kids while she worked. So I did that for a few months, before the guy she met didn’t want me around there anymore.

Then I met this couple in Ypsi who let me crash on their couch for a minute. This turned into a bad, yucky, unhealthy situation. I heard about Delonis, so I went there. I was super scared, nervous, and had a lot of anxiety. The couple of staff I met right away made me feel safe. A couple invited me to have lunch with them, and I did an intake and got a bed on the fourth floor within a week and a half, which was pretty quick. I think the shelter staff made me feel good and safe. Having the drive for a better life helped keep me going. I did what I had to do to stay in the shelter and take the steps to get things going for myself. I got inspired there.

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I was bullied by several people while I was staying at Delonis to the point where they got kicked out of the shelter for their behaviors. I remember staying up at night crying to myself, thinking about all of the people who had been my bullies that were out in the freezing cold. I went crying to the director of Delonis to advocate that they lift the restrictions on these people. The director at the time made a point of letting my bullies know that they were being let back into the shelter because of me. I think that action changed them–they never treated me disrespectfully after that. I think they saw that I had acted out of compassion on their behalf and that changed how they acted towards me.

I was just at Delonis for a year. Most people do not stay 90 days. I think Delonis didn’t want to get rid of me–I had developed a really good rapport with staff there.

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Everyone at Delonis would go to Peggy’s house (Mercy House) on Saturday mornings, so I started going, too. My initial thought when I met Peggy was what a beautiful person she is. The way the kitchen was set up was she would make the pancakes on the same side as [I would do dishes]. Her energy was very peaceful. I shared this very close space with her purposefully, to see her greet this house full of people and make them pancakes.

Gradually, over that time, my relationship with Peggy [grew]. There were a couple of moments when I felt that she respected and trusted me, like when she asked me whether I thought people were selling drugs out of her house or when she needed help with the Christmas party. So that’s how I got involved with Mercy House and my current role as house manager.

MissionA2 (Michigan Itinerant Shelter System-Interdependent Out of Necessity, a collection of community members providing food and communal space “for the community to come together to combat homelessness”) had owned the Purple House for many years before it closed temporarily. Two years ago in October 2020, I remember seeing this woman Tamara, who had severe schizophrenia and could not stay at Delonis, day in and day out in the cold and wet. I just felt that this is so unfair. As a board member of Mission A2, I had the idea to start a weather amnesty program at Purple House to provide shelter for people who are unable to stay at Delonis due to trauma, severe mental illness or addiction, etc. We would be picking up the slack in the system.

I had this idea, but I needed the help of 2 friends, Ben and Lindsay. They helped to make it happen. The three of us would alternate shifts, and we would be up all night from 6pm-8am. We would then go home and sleep a little bit then do it all again for many months [until the weather got better].

We need foot care because those basic services are so neglected. In my own personal experiences, when you are homeless and you’ve been walking in the same shoes, footcare is pretty important. When I got to Delonis, I had these ankle boots with worn down heels. It was really bad. But at that time, my toes were all curled up. They were wet. They were gross. I see that [foot problems] happen very commonly.

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A lot of work needs to be done in the mental health area. Why is this schizophrenic woman wandering around the streets for two years? The system is off somewhere in that regard. There’s a crack in the road and these folks fall into that crack and cannot advocate for themselves. For example, there are quite a few people that are in this crack, and I have been on the end where I have called crisis teams in certain situations. [The crisis teams] are completely useless because they cannot do anything unless someone is presenting as a danger to themselves or others. But if someone is completely delusional– that’s dangerous. How is that not dangerous? People suffer as a result of that. A person who is completely delusional shows up to us in a police car every single night. How is that safe for anybody?

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In terms of substance use treatment, it’s another vicious cycle, a revolving door. It’s another area where Purple House could be really helpful. There is a hole in the system, as a huge percentage of the homeless community with mental health issues, addiction, or a combination of both.

For example, say somebody is homeless and is ready for [addiction] treatment. They come to their case manager and say ‘I am ready. Get me a bed. I am ready to do it.’ The case manager says, ‘okay, we’ll call and make arrangements and get you a bed.’ Well, turns out there will be a bed available at X treatment center in 2 weeks. What are they supposed to do for 2 weeks? Go live on the streets, chase the drugs? You’re gonna lose them. They’re not gonna come back. They’re gonna change their mind. Their heart will be in a different place. They may end up in jail. They may end up dead. The list is endless.

And that is what I would like to see–a safe space for these people to go while they are waiting to get into treatment. That is something I would like to see Purple House do, but that would require a lot.

When I enter a space, I try to own it. That helps to make people feel more comfortable who are more vulnerable. And it can go the other way, too. People can walk in and feel completely uncomfortable with who I am as a trans woman. But once they realize I am owning the space, I am the one providing the space for their shelter, it helps them to look beyond their own uncomfortable ignorance. I am not sure where else in this particular state this can happen. I am not sure how many places in Detroit you can go and have a couple of trans people run a shelter. If that happened for me, that would have changed a lot of my fear. Ann Arbor is a progressive city to be if you are trans or part of the LGBTQ community. I have always felt pretty comfortable walking around in Ann Arbor.

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During the last 5 years on my journey, although I am not Christian, I have always tried to seek out spiritual connections. In realizing that I have a spiritual connection to the universe and that things happen for a reason, I have developed a strong sense of gratitude. I pulled myself out of the gutter, so anything that I have, I am grateful for. I tell myself that every single day.

The universe has a plan, and my relationship with Peggy and the community is something I can't necessarily put into words. It has allowed me to become this person that people respect, admire, and need. I am reminded that I am more than what I seem at face value. I will never forget that we are more than people see.

I was introduced to writing at a young age by my family. Writing is a way to connect to the community. For me, I see myself as a community educator, to share what I have learned with members of the community. A poet and writer likes to share their private feelings in public places.

I made a commitment to Groundcover News to write about different cultures. The book Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know by ED Hirsch really impacted me and my writing. I have been able to talk about St. Patrick’s day, about Ramadan, and about the Stonewall riots in NYC and the LGBTQ community.

Writing has become a therapy for me in addition to community education. I enjoy the writing and research that I do. It is a labor of love, to write. I have people who are always asking me what I am going to write next. One of the things that gives me a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment is when some of Groundcover News’ readers come to me and say that they’ve learned something new.

Groundcover News is a community newspaper. It was founded right after the Ann Arbor News stopped publishing every day and instead went to publishing just twice a week. The publisher of Groundcover News at that time, Susan Beckett, was motivated to publish this paper due to the poverty and vulnerability of members in our community. She wanted to publish it as a way to help poor and homeless people have an income by selling the paper to help people to buy food, transportation, etc.

I don’t write for Groundcover News for the money. We have gotten positive reviews from many people, including professors. One professor who had been reading Groundcover News since it was founded told me that my writing was just as good as what he had read in major newspapers like the New York Times and Washington Post!

I am currently working on a project called “The Homeless in Ann Arbor: Who They Are and What They Want.” We started more than 5 years ago. The work was inspired by an article written by a professor of psychology: “The Squatters of Lima: Who They Are and What They Want” as well as my writing about warming centers.

Learning points from this work were that [people who are] homeless are not a monolith. There is diversity and complexity within their experiences. Some may say they want housing or security, some want medical insurance, medical healing, or food security. Others want maximum freedom. There are many different priorities; not everyone has the same needs and priorities. For example, I once was talking to a woman at Delonis, and her main priority was to find a boyfriend.

When I started to work with MissionA2 (Michigan Itinerant Shelter System-Interdependent Out of Necessity), I was on the board for 5 years. As a member of the board, I was on the finance sub-committee. We were a group of around five to six people who talked about fundraising to buy homes and renovate them to create affordable housing. There was a lot of discussion about what kind of building and the design layout to make–small, single occupancy buildings versus homes with multiple rooms in them.

This was a way to provide community living so that people can live on the first or second floors and then share a community dining space. Some people just want their own small building (tiny house) as a model to use. Because Purple house is only on 3 acres of land, they were trying to figure out how they wanted to use the space to design housing. I think they should build a community center using the Gilbert Court model as the ideal. In this model, people each have their own bedrooms but share a kitchen, bathroom, and dining space.

To me, a sense of community is a place where peace, love, and people gather together in harmony, in cooperation, and in service to one another. Fundamentally, there must be a basic sense of respect. You give and expect respect in return. Respect is not something you earn. Respect is a basic human right in a civilized society.

Mission and Mercy House communities work because there is peace and a peaceful coexistence. Trust, on the other hand, is earned. However, respect is expected, not earned. Trust is something you build with consistency. You do not build trust by being a hypocrite or being an unequivocal person. You want people to consistently treat you the same way.

In my opinion, the 3 most important things in relationships are:

1. Respect.

2. Communication: There is so much variance in this, so many dimensions. Listening, talking, writing, and non-verbal communication. However, most human beings want peaceful communication, not melodramatic or acrimonious communication.

3. Trust, which is honored and built through consistency. It is possible to relate to someone you do not trust, but there needs to be mutual respect. It is difficult to have relationships with people who do not capture all 3 of these qualities. In a healthy community, you need all three of these. The most basic ones are the first two.

I like the idea of Mercy House, however sometimes there is a difference between the rhetoric and the reality. The rhetoric is a peaceful setting: we have Mercy House because we want to show mercy. A part of showing mercy is to do whatever we can to alleviate hunger, to help vulnerable people survive, to help alleviate poverty and homelessness. We hope we can provide a peaceful environment so that mercy, love, and giving people hope can be achievable. But the bottom line is that there is risk involved in bringing people together who have psychiatric problems. There is everyday anger against one another, everyday challenges that come with this.

Quite a few people in the homeless community do not want to go to Delonis because they want freedom and life without having to follow the rules at Delonis. Many of them will not seek out medical help until it is too late. One good thing that Mission is doing is to try to connect people to health services. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Mission and Delonis along with the Ann Arbor local government, worked to ensure people who were homeless had received their COVID-19 vaccines. They also worked to provide hotel spaces to allow for safe social distancing, up to 100 people were housed at one time.

People in healthcare need to know that people may make choices that are not in their best interest. We have people at Delonis, Purple house, and Mercy House who will never take the vaccine, but there are also people who did take it. There is a lot of intermingling of people of different vaccination statuses.

Let me start from the beginning, or near enough. I flunked out of the University of Michigan and spent years as a drug addict, doing whatever I could to escape my disappointing life. I had spent the intervening time volunteering at various non-profits, helping children with homework and supervising the use of shop tools for woodworking projects. It was something to do, but I felt like I was treading water, running home as fast as I could to do more drugs and sit around. I wasn’t moving forward at all. Eventually everything dissipated. The money ran out, and people’s tolerance for me was at its limits. I went through the eviction process several times before I decided to return to my family home, ready to die. I was living alone in the basement of my home, isolated. At that point, my friends would sparsely speak to me, I had lost my fiance, and my family justifiably kept me at arm’s length. I had let a life of depression set me on a path toward suicide. My plan was to retreat from the world and consume drugs until I passed away. I had no faith in the world, and I was angry at the people in it. I had spent the last decade lamenting about what I thought was the fate of the world: death by global warming and the slow consumption of our planet by capitalism. The hate in my heart was consuming me. If I had lived as I had planned, if I had not died from my own stupidity, I would have become a monster. I was writing my magnum opus, my last strike at the world I hated. The goal was to create a thousand page Bible for psychopaths, a guide for subverting society, for being evil, for sending and receiving encoded messages to enable people to do terrible things without repercussions. I was utterly lost and wanted to create chaos in a dying world before I passed away. That was my plan that would have bitterly failed. God offered me an alternative.

The drugs nearly killed me. I was lying on my bed, fading, tired, feeling that my life was ending. I looked behind me and saw a man sitting calmly; a man that I now know was Jesus Christ. At first, I thought my drug dealer had come to kill me for a petty squabble I had initiated over the quality of the drugs I was receiving. All I managed to do was to turn my head in His direction and say “Hey.” He didn’t say anything, He was just there, watching over me like I was His sick, dying child.

I fell asleep and when I awoke, I disposed of my drugs. I felt a mix of fear and gratitude; that my drugs had been poisoned and that I had owed it to God for saving me. This event created a glimmer of faith in me that continues to grow. However, I relapsed quickly. I acquired more of my drug of choice: methamphetamine. Every time I tried to end my life and continue my plan, however, God intervened. He gave me dreams and visions that answered my questions about His existence and the way the universe worked. He proved Himself to me and then worked with me every day while I was alone in my basement room. I started reading the Bible and recording my thoughts and my questions. I wrote my dreams down and analyzed them, looking for messages from God. The dreams I had were a mix of light and darkness: visions of hell, being passed around like a possession, endlessly drowning, being forced to fight for entertainment, every quality that sin brings to man. I had dreams of Heaven, massive, beautiful cities where it felt like every person I had ever known was there, cheering me on, that they all understood and loved me for who I was; Heaven was nothing like the boring worship that I had thought it was. I was challenged to show my love for people, to be the person that I knew I wanted to be. I had been struggling to figure out the Universe, and I cycled through those beliefs about how things worked. God asked a question each time: “If that is how the world is, governed by your perceptions of it, how will you behave knowing that I exist?”

I started hearing things in my mind, the word “help,” over and over. Initially it was just white noise that if I listened closely to, I could hear words emerging. I cried out to God in sarcasm: “Why can’t you make it louder so that I know I’m not hallucinating.” That night I had a dream where life was like a game, that I could do whatever I wanted, and I chose to steal and take what I wanted. The dream ended with a game over screen that chastised me for believing so stupidly that God had put me on this earth to be a sinner with no regard for others. At the end of the dream, the word “Help!” was screamed so audibly into my mind that it jarred me to life. I got up, I got dressed. I went out into the world looking to help anyone that I could. I went to the local Baptist Church, the one I had attended when I was a youth, but it was locked. I went to the community center down the road and sat outside by myself smoking a cigarette, thinking that I was so cool throwing my life away to nicotine while being on this path from God. I walked down the road toward my home and started talking to God: “Well? What a bust! No one to help, nothing to do, so much for that!” When I neared the corner where I would have turned down the street to go home, I noticed a crew of people putting up a prefabricated home. I said to God “Fine!” and I walked over to them. I introduced myself and told them I would work for free, whatever they wanted me to do. They liked me, the boss showed up and paid me for my day’s work and offered me a job. I took it.

My life had become a painful process and before this revitalization I had become closed in on myself, unsure of what I was capable of or who I was. The opportunity helped me realize that I can do the things that I thought I wasn’t able to, that God could protect me in dangerous situations, that the fear of living that I had become so accustomed to was unnecessary. It helped me realize my passion: helping people. I deeply care about people and ultimately that is what saved my life as surely as God did. He reminded me, gently, patiently, of who I was before and during the hardships of my past life. It was an interesting if brief experience that reconnected me to the world and the people in it, but it wasn’t long before God gave me a choice to follow my passion more fully. I went through a series of trials, I was tested by God and at another time I would love to tell that story in detail, as those prior years were full of challenges and periods of growth. For now, I will only say that I was given a sign that I should leave my home and help people. I debated the idea for a day or so and I headed out with a backpack full of clothes and an empty wallet. I prayed for help, and I was provided with the money I needed to make the journey back to where I thought God wanted me to go. I went to Ann Arbor, I didn’t have a place to stay but I knew about the Delonis center and decided it was the perfect place to go to help people.