While living unsheltered on the levee in Sacramento County, Ashalana battled dark whispering voices daily during her five-year crystal meth drug addiction.

Today, her radiant smile, joyful demeanor and infectious happiness mute the brutal, hard-hitting and at times unbearable journey she traveled to rise above her drug addiction and find peace and contentment in her life.

“The biggest thing I had to overcome were the voices. I was on drugs, I was not eating right, I was not sleeping right and there were a lot of voices coming at me.” Says Ashalana, “I called out to God and if He can’t help me then I’m in trouble, so I started calling on Him. After I stopped using, it took almost 7 months for the voices to go away.”

Ashalana relied on services at Mary’s House during this difficult time. She used the showers, was able to get hygiene products and other necessities. When she stopped using drugs, she came to Mary’s House to use their resources.

While living on the levee, Ashalana saw the Sacramento downtown street team cleaning up. She asked them about their job and if they get paid. In her transition to get sober, she followed up with them and now works for the downtown street cleaning team.

Today, Ashalana lives indoors at the Salvation Army and has been employed for three months.

“I was getting pulled in one way or another, I was going to stay in the dark or come to the light and after five years, I am walking in a different light,” says Ashalana.

Gregory, who will be 65 years old in September, tells me he grew up in James Town, North Dakota. We talk about how much he loved his grandmother’s cabin on Spirit Wood Lake.

Gregory experienced absolute freedom on the crystal clear waters of Spirit Wood Lake, 18 miles north of his hometown. The emerald, sapphire and gold colors of the summer months were filled with swimming for hours on end, learning to sail and fishing with his Grandpa.

“I felt like that was my home,” Gregory says. “They had to force me to go to town. My father was concerned I wouldn’t go to college because we were having too much fun at the lake cabin. I came home after my first day of school and said, ‘When I get out of college I’m going to quit school!’”

He tells me about how the deep blue-green waters of Spirit Wood Lake were the perfect escape from each imminent school year. The natural beauty of his surroundings and a growing sense of his own independence pushed school from his boyhood thoughts.

Gregory goes on to tell me he made it through three years of pre-med studies in college, but a horrific car wreck put an end to his college career.

“I shattered the windshield with my head, and the people didn’t have insurance. I didn’t walk for a year and the doctors told me I had to accept the fact that I might never walk again for the rest of my life.”

“I didn’t accept that. I was going to find a way to walk and I did,” Gregory says.

A slim, girlish figure cautiously steps toward me. I shake her hand, look her in the eye and direct her to sit in the blue and white metal chair.

I walk behind the camera and steady my gaze.

She sits down slowly, turns her body counterclockwise toward the camera, lowers her head and looks sideways into the lens.

At that moment, I take the shot.

I look at the back of the camera and zoom in to check focus and the light pattern falling on her face.

“My name is Teresa,” she says.

Teresa speaks in a low, raspy voice and tells me how she likes reading, writing, and photography. She likes to read science books, particularly medical books and tells me about a leveling and mapping system she is interested in called Hierarchical Pattern Mapping.

“I’ve been out here about a year. I was living in a house and there was violence and a criminal case, and we couldn’t go back there,” Teresa says. “I own the house too. It’s in Oak Park, but I can’t go back.”

I study the image we just made on the back of the camera. To me, Teresa looks like a young woman ready for school, not a 55-year-old mother of five living alone in a tent on Ahern Street. In this way, she is so very similar to many of the people I meet at Loaves & Fishes.

Teresa stands up slowly as our conversation winds down. “I have to do something else, I can’t be outside anymore.”

She pauses and then tells me, “These are all the seconds of my life.”

I see James sitting on a green wooden bench in the shade. His backpack obediently stays next to his right leg.

He recognizes me. We shake hands and catch up a little bit.  

“Hey, can I get that other photo you took of me?” James says. “The one with my hand on my hat?”

He pulls a photograph out of his backpack. It’s the portrait we made last week and I can see that the surface is scuffed and the corner is bent up a little. “I like this one,” he says, pointing at the 4×6 black and white print, “but I’d like the other one, too.”

“Sure, I can get you a print next week,” I say as I sit down and we start talking.

James tells me he was born in 1954, grew up in San Francisco and worked concessions and ticket sales at Candle Stick Park before he was drafted into the Army. James saw two tours of duty in Vietnam. I don’t ask about the war.

“What’s the toughest part about being out here?” I say.

“Toughest part is dealing with the rest of the homeless,” he says.

James talks about his Mom. He tells me she passed away last year from cancer. He mentions Mother’s Day and shares a few fond memories of her.

“She was a tough woman. She gave me money and put a roof over my head,” James remembers. “She made me omelets before I went to school and packed brownies in my lunch. We got along really well.”

“What my Mom did for me in my lifetime? I can’t put the words in the right perspective.”

James looks to the sky and says, “She gave me the opportunity to be myself.”

Nina, a 49-year-old Sacramento native and mother of four lives in a tent one block from Friendship Park. She’s been living outside for about a year and a half. She talks with me about an armed robbery, the fiancé she lost and getting her life back.

Nina graduated high school in 1985 and started working as a cashier. She found satisfaction in helping people and seeing the “regulars” in her store. Nina was head cashier at Pep Boys when her life changed forever.

“I was working at Pep Boys on a Sunday when we got robbed during the 10-6 shift,” Nina says. “I had a gun shoved in my face and he knew where the lock box was and the layout of the store. It was horrifying. Everything in my life went downhill after that day.”

Nina explains the police found a recently hired co-worker had “cased” the business for her boyfriend. He committed the armed robbery.

“A few weeks after the robbery, my fiancé was hit by a car,” Nina says. “He had a titanium rod put in his leg and within a year he was gone. He died in his sleep. His body rejected the titanium rod.”

Walking back to Friendship Park, I can hear the determination in Nina’s voice.

“It’s been a rough journey. I’m trying to get out and off the street. I’m just taking it one day at a time. That’s how I deal with my sobriety,” Nina says, looking me in the eye. “I haven’t had a drink in six months and that’s number one with me. I’m staying on the right track, and that will get me off the street.”

“A good friend of mine I met at Mary’s House is coming back out here Friday,” Nina says. “She wants me to stay the weekend with her. I’m going to see how it goes, I’ll be inside, I hope it all works out.”