Guardian Angels Along My Homeless Path

From the age of eighteen, he became a drifter. He moved from a life of drugs, alcohol and crime to homelessness. Along the way, he got married for a few months, and had a daughter from whom he is detached but adores. Still drifting, neither his addiction nor his homelessness could deter him from pursuing what he refers to as the American Dream. He pursued and earned a Bachelors degree in Sociology, and a Masters in Criminology sleeping mostly in and out of homeless shelters, in abandoned buildings and on street corners. Because of his arrest record, and imprisonment as a petty-thief some twenty five years ago, he remains unemployed and homeless, a victim of his past. How he survived it all, he says, it is because he "had some Guardian Angels" along his Homeless path.

Narayan Persaud is an Associate Professor at Florida A & M University where he teaches courses in Criminal Justice and Sociology. He earned his PhD. from Florida State University and serves as an adjunct professor at this institution. He has published several journal articles and a monograph entitled Mentoring With A Humane Face, published by Thomson Publishing. Ulyses B. Hooks Jr. holds an Associate Degree from Bunker Hill Community College in Boston Massachusetts, and Bachelors and Masters' degrees from Florida A & M University. He served two terms in prison. The first lasted two and half years, and the second, six and half years. In 1979 he was discharged from prison and never returned. From the early age of eighteen he drifted in and out of homeless.