Faces of homelessness

In 7th grade, Cynthia Castillon was a straight-A student. That was before being expelled for bringing drugs to school. If only that were the worst of her problems.

The journey from honor student to sleeping behind a San Diego County church would trace the arc of her bouts with homelessness between 2004 and 2008. Her drug and alcohol abuse led her on a downward spiral that would take years to reverse.

Dennis Clark found himself in an Arlington County, Va. shelter after his taxi-driving income was decimated by competing ride-hailing services. In better times, he was able to afford motel rooms, or he couch surfed with relatives.

“I’ve driven a cab for over 20 years, and Uber has really killed our business,” he said. “I had run out of relatives to live with, and I ended up having to suck up my pride and come to the shelter.”

For Castillon and Clark, homelessness — for varying periods of time — was a waypoint to permanent housing, thanks to services provided by their respective counties.

Castillon’s drug use — meth, “anything I could get my hands on” — continued through high school. After graduating, she made a failed attempt at college, but the lure of drugs and drink proved too strong to resist.

Pregnant at 19, she had her first child. The father was “into drugs,” and they would have a second baby before he split, leaving her with two small girls whom her parents would eventually care for.

“I ended up homeless in the streets of East County San Diego,” she recalled. “I remember sleeping behind a church in a sleeping bag, and I would wake up Sunday morning … and I could see people coming to the church and just tried to pull that sleeping bag up a little bit over my head so they wouldn’t be able to completely see me back there lying down.”

For a time, she lived in a park with other homeless people. She and a new boyfriend would break into abandoned buildings “just to have somewhere that was dry to sleep at night.”

“It was just one thing after another,” she said, “but unfortunately, I was still heavy into my drug use.” By this time, she was seeing a different guy, who would father her third child — a boy.

At that point, Castillon was sober, but her baby’s father wasn’t. Luckily — if you can call it luck — it was his insobriety that helped to turn her life around.

One night, her boyfriend — while intoxicated — was going to drive Castillon to her mother’s house but changed course with no explanation. “No, you’re drunk,” she protested, “I’m not going to drive with you.” But she acquiesced.

At a stoplight, Castillon opened the door and tried to make a run for it; that’s when her boyfriend grabbed her by her coat and drove off.

“Being dragged from a moving vehicle and you’re pregnant, and this other person who’s supposed to care has no regard for you whatsoever. And that was kind of just my ‘aha’ moment,” she said.

“It was at that point realized I’m going to either end up dead or in jail or something. So I did what I thought was my only choice, I went home to my parents, who were always more than willing to help me out and do whatever I needed to do — but they wanted me to do it the right way, and I wasn’t ready prior to that.”

So, here she was — a single mother of three “with no kind of work history,” student loans from her brief fling with college in default. “It was just really hard to kind of see myself being able to do anything for these three kids that I had,” she said, “let alone have a career.”

On her parents’ advice, Castillon sought help from San Diego County’s Health and Human Services Agency.

That’s how she learned about the welfare-to-work program that allowed her to go back to school and earn two associates degrees — one in behavioral science, the other in social work.

Soon she was offered an internship in San Jose City College’s mental health systems program. When paid position opened up — just week into her internship — she was offered a case manager job.

“I was like, ‘Cool,’ so I started on as an intern; a week later I was a case manager and now,” she said. “it’s almost four years later, I’m lead supervising counselor, and I’m really at a completely different spot than I was eight years ago.”

At age 34, she’s preparing to go back to school for a bachelor’s degree in social work. She got married about three years ago to man with a steady job, and they have a fourth child.

“I was completely able to turn my life around, and a lot of it had to do with just the services that the county provides,” Castillon said. “As a single mom of four… I didn’t know what to do, where to start. So it was really awesome.”

Meanwhile back in Virginia, Dennis Clark no longer lives in motels or a shelter. He has his own one-bedroom apartment thanks to A-SPAN (formerly known as Arlington Street People Assistance Network), which the county helps to fund.

Because of his age, 60, and his low income, Clark qualifies for a rent subsidy. He pays the balance from his earnings as a cabbie. “There was a time I didn’t need any subsidy; I paid my way,” he said.

“My family came from North Carolina in the ’50s and we were always, even to this day, hardworking people who pay our own way, but life throws you a curve sometimes.”

Thanks to A-SPAN and Arlington County, Clark has a home and his dignity.

“They don’t make you feel like you’re belittled in any way, they’re always positive,” he said. “Some of them have great personalities and a sense of humor, and it helps in a place like that, and I just want to give the staff an A+ rating.”

As for Castillon, she said, “I’m just so grateful to be in a position where I’m at right now, where I’m going back to get my bachelor’s, the kids are doing okay in school. I don’t have any wants; I’m financially stable.”