A Chance for a New Beginning

In trying to find a lost shirt, I found something greater than the value of any piece of clothing--a basement filled with the hope and promise of men trying to rebuild their lives.

Downstairs at the Midnight Mission in Los Angeles, there were half a dozen former homeless men sorting piles of donated clothing--including some I had recently given. When I thought I’d included a shirt I’d intended to keep, I was taken to the basement to try to find it. The shirt wasn’t there, but I discovered rooms that had no windows but offered glimmers of light for those whose lives have been darkened by despair and addiction.

There was Earl Jones, 43, who is fighting an addiction to crack cocaine. Alex Conedy, in and out of prison and coping with a 15-year drug addiction. Both are working at sorting some of the 40 to 50 bags of donated clothes the mission receives each day. There was Gregory Peete, 43, also fighting a cocaine addiction. His workplace, and refuge, is the laundry room.

Duane Mackey works on repairing televisions and stereos. He doesn’t know how he ended up at the mission almost two months ago; he remembers only waking up after blacking out on a Los Angeles street, his 15-year alcohol problem catching up to him. Like the others working in the basement, he hopes to put his life on a better course at this shelter for the homeless and substance addicted.

Whether it’s cleaning, sorting and passing out clothes, giving a haircut, or repairing a television set, the men know they are giving back something to those who come off the streets to the mission each day.

It’s a place of give and take. For room and board, the men have to stay clean and sober. Many take part in personal-improvement programs.

They know what it’s like to be on the street, because they have been there. They are working hard, trying not to go back.

Clothing and food donations may be made seven days a week to the Midnight Mission, 396. S. Los Angeles St., L.A., 90013 (213) 624-9258.