They were homeless but had their lives turned around. This is what they do

About two years ago, Michael Mata boarded a bus at 5 a.m. near the shelter where he lives on the northern edge of South Los Angeles. He was determined to end years of sporadic homelessness and a series of dead-end jobs.

A companion at the shelter suggested he arrive early at Chrysalis, a nonprofit that helps people find jobs and rebuild their lives. Mata was told they started lining up early and they could only accommodate so many people per day.

“I arrived at 5:30,” said Mata, who was first in line.

That day, Mata took two of the four required orientation classes. Two days later, he took the other two. When I met him on Wednesday, Mata was driving a van into the parking lot of Chrysalis headquarters. He was a highway crew supervisor and had six people working for him. They worked with Caltrans in the Glendale area, picking up trash on roads and highways, all hot and sweaty.

Mata has been living in his own apartment for the past few months.

The mayoral election is three weeks away, with Mayor Karen Bass and challenger Councilor Nithya Rahman both touting their records on homelessness and both insisting she can do better than her opponents.

I’ve reached out to Chrysalis CEO Mark Loranger with this suggestion:

While one person’s recovery is not necessarily a road map for others, let’s hear from some formerly homeless people willing to share their stories of how they managed to break the cycle.

Lorengo and his staff recommended that I meet with Mata, 43; Marshall May, 58; Alice Moya, 41; and Nicole Bastiani, 52.

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People end up homeless for a variety of reasons. Lost job. Domestic abuse. A mental illness. An addiction. Financial setback. Have a criminal record. Housing expenses. all of the above.

“People voluntarily join the program,” Loranger said. “They’re in and out of the system, and a lot of people offer them help, but it doesn’t work out. Something inside of them … says, ‘I’ve got to get it together. I’ve got to get a job.'”

Mata spent time in jail, he lived in an RV, and he worked a lot of jobs that didn’t pay enough to get him out.

“Do you know how hard it is to find a job in Los Angeles?” Mata said. “Everyone has some problems in their life, right? But it’s about getting interviews or even getting attention, you know?”

He has a daughter that he cannot raise. That’s part of what motivates him.

“I even applied to McDonald’s,” Mata said. “I didn’t care where I had to work. I just wanted a job.”

Chrysalis connects its clients with social services and teaches them how to write resumes, browse online job listings and handle interviews. The nonprofit, which has six branches, expects to find 2,200 clients this year in security, restaurants and other fields.

Approximately 600 clients work in one of Chrysalis’ four divisions, including street cleaning, which has always been meaningful to me. You give homeless people jobs and a chance at housing while solving a big city problem.

Mata chose to work with the road department “because I felt like I was overweight,” Mata said, and he wanted to get in shape. He immediately contacted his supervisor and was promoted to team leader and later to supervisor.

Mata said that in his opinion, homeless people were given housing without a way to keep their keys.

“I don’t understand why you would house someone who can’t provide an income,” he said.

A few months ago, he moved into a small studio apartment in Skid Row, paying $520 a month. Not much. There is no kitchen. There is only one bed and one bathroom. But it worked for him.

“You have your own four walls,” Mata said. “It’s about having your own peace.”

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Marshall May’s father was a soldier and his mother was a psychiatrist. Smart and articulate, he may have found his success, but he found drugs instead.

“I did cocaine from Ronald Reagan… to Obama leaving office,” May said. She stole to support her habit and spent time in jail. When he was out, he stayed in “motels, projects, streets, cars, abandoned houses.”

In 2016, after being imprisoned again, he said, “I couldn’t go back.” He enrolled in a 12-step program with a spiritual component to “restore… hope and belief that you can change, but you have to be willing to do it.”

While living in the ghetto, May saw cleaning crews working on the streets.

“I walked up to one of the guys and said, ‘I can do it,'” and he did it. “Not pleasant at all. Cleaning up feces, dead rats, vomit, needles.”

He later worked other jobs at Chrysalis and is now the director of Chrysalis Custody, a storage facility for homeless people.

May is sober and working, moved in with his ailing mother for a time and cared for him, and now lives with and cares for an elderly aunt.

He has been clean for 10 years.

“I don’t believe in excuses, reasons, rationalizations. Every opportunity you get, take advantage of it,” May said.

Without purpose, he said, “you have nothing to focus on. And I desperately needed that.”

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Elyse Moya said she was abused by her family, ran away from home when she was 14 and continued to run away for many years. She was homeless on and off, taken in by gang members, sold drugs, took drugs, and had four children. The birth of her daughter was an awakening when she was homeless.

“I think the worst place I ever slept with her was I broke into a laundromat in an apartment building and made her a bed on top of the washing machine and she slept there,” Moya said.

When the county took her baby away, Moya knew she had to go to rehab to have a chance of getting her back. She attended a program for seven months and felt it was effective because the therapists treated not only her addiction but also the bipolar disorder she had been diagnosed with as a teenager.

“There is a nurse on site 24 hours a day, so she makes sure we take our medications on time,” Moya said.

After recovering, she was referred to Chrysalis, where her first job was evacuating people from homeless encampments and placing them in temporary housing during the pandemic. A supervisor thought she would excel working at a Venice nonprofit dedicated to preventing and ending youth homelessness.

Moya thinks she’s good at the job because she can relate.

“It basically makes all the bad stuff I’ve been through put into perspective. It’s not pointless,” she said.

Homelessness has a lot to do with low wages and high rents, but Moya believes it’s also a symptom of a failed system. Most of the people in her work in Venice have spent time in foster care, juvenile correctional facilities or prison.

Moya went from doubting his ability to handle a full-time job to thriving at a full-time job. After several promotions, she moved to a job in the Santa Clarita area and is now a case manager for newly placed clients.

“It’s hard to get in,” Moya said, explaining that it’s hard to leave a group of survivalists behind when you doubt whether you can handle the responsibilities of a normal life.

“It’s really hard to care about yourself when you want to do all the hard work. Thankfully, I have things that I’m working on,” she said.

Moya now has his own apartment and just bought a car to get to work. She said her two children lived with her.

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Epiphany. One push. A purpose. An opportunity. All of these things can help break the cycle of homelessness, and for those who make it to Chrysalis, employment specialist Nicole Bastiany can help.

Bastiani was homeless, addicted, underwent transitional surgery, and attempted to take his own life on more than one occasion. She once cleaned outdoor showers near the Santa Monica Pier and became homeless while working a temporary job selling appliances at Sears.

Always a hard worker, she worked in the technology industry, sold cars and owned her own apartment near MacArthur Park. She returned to drug use and was hospitalized for a time with severe depression accompanied by a psychotic episode. But in early 2024, she was job hunting again and saw a job posting for a customer service coordinator at Chrysalis. She started in April of that year and was later promoted to her current job.

In her office, Bastiani glanced at the walls covered with resources for housing, rehabilitation and job training. She said many of her clients don’t know what’s available. For those who are ready to make a change, she helps them find the right path, and she recalls a woman she met at a mental health facility.

“She was an employment expert, just like me, and wouldn’t give up on me,” Bastiani said. “when [I was] Once I got out of that, I was like, no, I’m too old. You know, no one wants to hire black trans people with mental health and substance abuse issues. She just wouldn’t give up. …let’s try something like this. Let’s do something like this. So that’s what I try to convey when I’m doing my own thing. “

Some people will find that they are not ready. Some people will give it a try and stumble. Some people will succeed.

Every year, thousands of people walk through their front doors and try to live a better life.

steve.lopez@latimes.com