Owning their pasts, students look to a future in homelessness services
LOS ANGELES - Lying in bed at night, Earl Williams wondered what his future would be. From his top bunk, No. 133A, in the men's shelter on 38th Street in South Los Angeles, he stared up at the white rafters.
With the world out of sight, anything seemed possible - until his fears kicked in.
He prayed. He thought of his new friends. He repeated words of encouragement that had come his way, but they were sometimes hard to believe.
The men around him snored, they moaned, they whispered among themselves. Beds creaked, and the smells of weed, even meth, reached him like the tentacles from his former life. At 48, Williams felt like a football team that never won.
He curled onto his side. He adjusted his day pack, which was his pillow. It held his tablet, a change of clothes, papers. They were his most prized possessions, always nearby in case he got arrested, kicked out - or there was a fire.
The lights came on at 4:30 a.m., and the day began: a shower, breakfast, a morning smoke, his daily Facebook post, and then he took a bus to college. During the day, he liked to put distance between himself and the shelter, which reminded him of a prison yard, so many men milling about, just killing time.
Since coming back to Los Angeles in July, Williams had lived with the hope that the world wasn't through with him, that the crimes of his past,
