Finding myself homeless a few years after a career in management started what felt like a life time struggle with addiction, the way forward was blurred at best, almost hopeless at worst.

Personal hygiene and grooming was a struggle and daily challenge, so being creative to hide my condition boiled down to using a beanie or hoodie until an opened bathroom could be found. Many times this took the whole day hopping from one trolley stop to another.

It was too important for me to stay clean, In fact, outside of finding food, finding a shower was the only thing I could do for myself at the time.

Nothing else mattered, even finding a job, because I needed an address to put on an application and I didn’t have one. I could not even volunteer at a local shelter (Father Joe's in downtown San Diego) without an address, so I lied on the volunteer application just so that I was able to volunteer in the kitchen and get a free sack lunch to take back to the sidewalk where I slept, which was just behind the wall from the kitchen where one daily meal was prepared for the local houseless population (in the thousands).

Eventually, I found a temporary house, a two person tent that had the square footage of one sidewalk square! The day I go to set it up, the person next to me, in a tent himself, says

This truly spoke of how big the houselessness problem was and still is. Soon, I was able to start cooking my own meals with items I had gleaned from local food pantries.

My girlfriend, who is now my wife, and I started sharing our cooked meals with our neighbors who lived alongside of us on the sidewalk. By the time we knew it we found ourselves cooking on the street for over 200 houseless individuals.

My mentor was a God send because he started mentoring me in contract work, teaching me about all the trades, helped develop skills in carpentry, plumbing, electrical and masonry, and even providing hand-me-down tools that I still use to this very day. My vocation began to materialize, my skill got honed and a customer base grew by word of mouth. Finally, I was self sustaining even though I was still living in a van. More importantly, I had a passion for my vocation and inner joy that no amount of drugs or money could give me.

Being involved with so many members of the outside community family through my wife and I’s cooking efforts (which became God's Kitchen), I wanted to help more, to help those just like me at one time, strung out on drugs, no direction, no inner joy, and vocationally misaligned. I essentially wanted to repeat my successes in life, and how I clawed and scratched my way off of the sidewalk. And my inner reflections revealed that vocational alignment was a key to unlock the hidden potential in every heart, that will bring lasting and meaningful joy, way different from the temporary pleasures of life.

If I could do it.

Then so can you.