"You can make it, you can do it"

Larry owns his own house and car, and is starting a landscaping business so he can hire the homeless and the formerly incarcerated, “to give them a second chance.” He is giving them

a second chance because he got a second chance, a

third chance and many other chances before he got it right.

Larry never should have ended up on the streets and in shelters. He came from a wonderful, caring, religious family in Alameda. His father was a career Navy man; his mother a nurse. His two brothers and sister loved him. He played high school football, joined the Army and even earned a college degree in Horticulture. What happened?

Bench-pressing 300 pounds, Larry tore his groin. Surgery followed causing him to miss a year of work, only to end up with gall stones. A downward spiral of surgeries ensued inevitably leaving Larry out of work, out of money, and out of his own home.

Too proud to turn to his family for help, Larry hit the road and lived off the streets. He survived on stints of employment as a bus driver, janitor and landscaper, but nothing let him get back on his feet again and stay there. At the lowest point in his life, Larry felt fear. “As a homeless person, you don’t know what you’re going to eat. You don’t know where you’re going to sleep or if you’re going to wake up the next morning.”

Larry heard about Berkeley Food & Housing Project from the network of homeless people, and made his way to BFHP’s Men’s Shelter on Center Street. One of his immediate worries disappeared when he found out that he could sleep in the same bed night after night.
Eventually, Larry entered the Shelter Extension Program which provides personalized case management and money management (a savings program). He says, “BFHP has resources homeless people need, like doctors and dentists. How can a homeless person get his life together if he doesn’t have resources?” … Best of all, Larry met Wanda.

Wanda Williams is the former Manager of the Men’s Overnight Shelter. She worked at the shelter for more than ten years. Her presence transformed not only the shelter building, but also men’s lives. Wanda is Larry’s favorite person because, “She talks to you. She has an open door policy. She gave me more than an extra chance. When your spirits are down, she’ll lift you up. She gave me hope.” When Larry talks about Wanda and BFHP, you can tell that he experienced a transformation, which came from his faith, his pastor and from what Wanda and BFHP did for him. “She’s the greatest!”

Larry is one of thousands of men BFHP has helped over the past thirty-eight years. Now that he owns his own home and is starting his own business, Larry gives back to the community. He volunteers in homeless outreach ministries. He has given talks to men at the Men’s Shelter. He has shared his experiences of being homeless, applying himself and straightening out his life with the assistance of the BFHP staff. He shares  his resources with the homeless. “Sometimes our clients want to hear from a successful client how he made it,” Wanda says. Now that he’s made it, he gives back to the homeless community by telling them, “You can make it. You can do it.” Larry tells them not only with words, but with experience … and he tells them with love.