Mark, 48, explains that he came to Denver in 2014 after leaving Chicago. He’d long been drawn to Denver, but a family rupture pushed him to finally leave, taking a Greyhound bus with little money and no clear plan. He had hoped to start a new life, and even the legalization of marijuana added to the pull. What he carried with him, though, was a difficult past: childhood abuse and what he calls “pure evil” from his parents. As a boy, he turned to God for guidance, choosing faith as a substitute for the father he couldn’t rely on.
While he once traveled the country in an old Volkswagen bus and dreamed of building a family, he now admits those hopes seem far away at 48. Still, he talks about wanting to re-enter the “material world”—to work, to have a home, maybe even a car again—while keeping a spiritual path as his foundation. He closes by acknowledging the importance of people with stable lives showing compassion toward those without homes, saying it gives him hope to know people care.
