The Street Santa : Homeless Man Delivers Christmas Cheer, Toys to Lomita Children

Santa has his sleigh; Robert Ray, the street Santa of Lomita, has his shopping cart.

Ray limps along Pacific Coast Highway by day and sleeps behind a bank at night. His cart carries most of his possessions. But that’s not all it contains.

“People give me food and toys, and I give them to the children,” Ray said as he pulled the cart up to the Learning Tree Preschool, where eager kids poked their fingers through the fence to touch his hand.

“I love these children. I wish they were mine.”

Ray won’t say much about his own children, except that one stole from him and another is in prison.

Although he concedes he has a drinking problem and says he has cancer, Ray said he is content with life on the streets and has turned down an offer of housing. People in Lomita, where he has lived for 18 years, off and on, are good to him, he said.

“This is my home, my last stand, I have more friends in the streets,” he said.

He doesn’t mind spending the holiday there, either.

“I enjoy Christmas more than any time of the year,” Ray said. “It makes people feel good.”