Mike knows hunger.

“I slept under a bridge for 3 years,” he says. “I ate out of a trash can. I didn’t want to go near anyone. It’s a bad feeling.”

Using one bucket as a restroom and the other to wash his clothes, Mike barely got by. Caught up in a nagging drug addiction, he often felt the pain of not enough food even though drug dealers brought food to the “camp” he lived in so they could keep their customers alive.

Mike’s only relief from this lifestyle was jail. “I’d get incarcerated, eat, get my weight up, then go back out,” he explains.

He vowed not to continue his drug habit after release, but then he’d fall back into it and land on the streets again.

This lifestyle took a toll on him physically. As a result of years on the streets, he developed frostbite, a bad cough, arthritis, and back pain.

After a long period of sobriety, Mike relapsed and he was kicked to the streets. He spent months just using drugs and watching TV. He knew he couldn’t continue this way.

“I was tired of doing what I was doing and needed a change,” Mike says. That’s when a friend referred him to the Mission, where your gifts are giving him another chance.

“I had to look at the man in the mirror,” Mike says. “Now I’m trying to change everything.” From education to addiction recovery, Mike has the tools he needs to build a newlife. Though he doesn’t know what the future holds, he is also working on his relationship with his wife and daughter and getting advice at the Mission on financial matters..

Hope for Mike began with a meal and care for just $1.96. Those meals have given him the strength to build his character. “I fell into a blessing,” Mike says. “I’ve learned more about myself than I have in a long time.”