A Ray of Hope

Like everyone else, Ray leaves the shelter at 5:30 each morning; but unlike many of the other residents, at that hour he has some place he needs to be.

Ray—although not a young man—rides his bike for 45 minutes to get to work, arriving nearly an hour before the start of his shift, “just to make sure I’m never late.” Once inside, he scours the restrooms, cleans the floors, and after the doors open, spends the rest of the morning washing dishes. Beaming, he tells me, “I do a good job, and the owner likes me.”

I have watched Ray struggle over the past ten months. I saw him panhandle enough money to buy a used bike so he could get around. I saw him come to Sacred Heart for clothing in order to look presentable, at first having used a bungee cord for a belt. I followed his small, hard-won successes as he obtained his birth certificate from the County Office of Records, then his California ID, then his social security card. He then created a resume, got his driver’s license, and after a string of rejections, finally gained part-time employment.

His discipline and determination had paid off.

But his job at the restaurant is minimum wage, and after six months he hasn’t found so much as a room for rent that he can afford.

After all of his efforts at carving out some sort of humane existence, he came to me the other day and told me, “Todd, I think it’s better that I take my savings and buy a car to sleep in.”

Now I watched his hope for a normal life slipping away.

I wanted to tell him all the reasons why this was a terrible idea, why it would make it harder to maintain his employment, why it was a waste of his resources, why it was a move away from stability, why he just needed to keep at it … but I wasn’t the one living in the shelter. So I said nothing.

“I’m getting old,” he said.