“I’m born and raised in San Francisco. I had been coming downtown trying to sell cupcakes with my wife with our cupcake business and was having a hard time, so my friend asked me if I wanted to come to Downtown Streets to get some help getting a job. So I did and the second week I was there I got picked. I was working for the street team for 6 months and while working for them I was also working with a job developer and I landed 3 jobs!”

“That’s great! What’s the story of your cupcake business?”

“The name of the business is Full of Sweets, Made with Lots of Love. We have 96 different flavors. Cotton candy, watermelon, snicker, piña colada, skittles.”

“What’s your favorite thing about your wife?”

“The love she has for my son, because that’s not her biological son.”

“How did y’all get together?”

“I met her at the Fruitvale Bart station. She had her hair braided and I asked her, ‘Why you got all that fake hair on your head?’ She told me it was real and she unbraided her hair and said, ‘I don’t let people touch my hair but I’ll let you touch it’. I put my hand in there and I didn’t feel no tracks, no sow in weaves, nothin. So I asked for her number and she said, ‘No, you give me your number’. But she didn’t call. 2 weeks later I ran into her again at the Bart station and said, ‘You didn’t call me! Can I have your number so I can call you?’ and she said ‘No. I lost your number but if you give me yours I’ll call you.’ 2 days later she called. We talked on the phone for like 6 months and she finally let me take her out. We became boyfriend and girlfriend but we lost contact for 4 years, I was still in the streets at the time. Then after 4 years I ran into her at the Fruitvale Bart station again. I asked her to be my girlfriend again, and she said, ‘No, but I’ll be your friend for life.’ Now every time I look at my wedding ring I know she kept her word, she’s really my friend for life.”

“That’s beautiful. What happened during those 4 years?”

“I had caught a federal case. At the time people in my neighborhood was beefing with people in a different part of my neighborhood and I happened to get caught with a gun. Then the federal government kidnapped me. I was just carrying the gun to protect myself. Right before I got caught with the gun I had got shot. I don’t glorify that life, it made me who I am today, but I know it’s my past.”

“What’s your vision for your life with your wife now?”

“I want to conceive a child with her but I know it’s not on our time, it’s on God’s time. Besides that, I want to love her more and more every single day. Every day I find new things to love about her. In a few days it’ll be our 7 year anniversary.”

Find out more about Downtown Streets at http://streetsteam.org/