It is a day that Southern Californians dread…..a day of pouring rain can seem to some as the apocalypse. I am driving in a sea of cranky drivers who tend to all be late for something. Is it the lunch meeting or perhaps the need to get to the store before the sale ends? Who knows? Who cares? I for one, do not.

It is as I pass under the 405 Freeway on Olympic that I notice on the left of me a person, alone, cold and huddled over. A bike with one wheel rests against the cement wall.

I want to meet him.

I park on a small side street and grab a power bar, and a wool beanie I had in the car. Our eyes meet as I run out of the rain and under the shelter of Freeway. I offer him my hand and he accepts graciously. The gratitude of a power bar and a beanie are apparent and I sit with him as the cars pass by, and we talk. He tells me that he has been on the streets now for about 2 years. I ask him what is the one thing that he misses at this very moment, his reply is a simple one, “A roof over my head”. He states that his current situation is the of a personal tragedy that he was unable to overcome. I ask him about what he thinks about our society and the current situation of it. He tells me ” The worse thing is not being….acknowledged”.

02 Dec This entry was published on December 2, 2014 at 9:30 pm. It’s filed under Portraits, Uncategorized and tagged Gratitude, Homeless, Hope, Photography, Rain, Shelter. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.