From a six-figure salary to penniless, homeless and hopeless.
If you had seen Phil lying on a park bench for the third morning in a row, snow falling around him, and shivering from head-to-toe, you would never have expected that he once had it all. A home, a job with a six-figure income…and a brother.
His outer success hid the wounds of a painful childhood, marred by years of abuse by his alcoholic father. Until his brother died.
“I was taught from a young age that if you work hard to provide for your family, it’s ok to drink, smoke and use recreational drugs if that’s what you need to cope.”
That seemed to work out alright, until his brother was killed in a car wreck. They’d been drinking. The guilt and loss was too much.
“That’s what led to all kinds of wreckage in my life,” he says. “I had serious anger issues.”
Unable to cope, Phil turned to alcohol, meth and heroin. They became his only companions. But they were thieves. “I lost everything,” Phil said.
Phil ended up on the streets of Everett. In the summer, he’d pick up construction jobs, but when the September weather turned grey and wet, work dried up. “Fall” had a new meaning as Phil hit rock bottom.
“I was digging around in dumpsters for old pizza, sleeping behind hardware stores and finding plastic bags to keep warm. I was living in a dumpster on the street. I was ready to kill myself.”
That winter he almost did.
A child’s security blanket saved Phil’s life.
“When a little child saw me that day at the park, shivering on a bench, waiting to die, he asked me why I was sleeping there. I answered, ‘Some people are less fortunate.’”
Phil looked into the worried face of a little three-year-old boy who decided to give up his precious security blanket to help him survive the cold. The sacrifice not only woke Phil up physically, it woke him up to God’s love as well.
“I was convinced that nobody cared. That God didn’t even care. When that little boy gave me his blanket, it became very clear to me that God did care.”
Phil got up and asked for help. He came to the Mission where he got a good meal, warm clothes and was invited into a recovery program. Now he knows Jesus and has left his addiction behind.
“This place truly saved me because nothing else could,” Phil says.
Since graduating from our Genesis program, Phil started his own contracting company where he employs others working on their recovery. He has married, had a couple kids and purchased property on Whidbey Island where his family are building a home and life together.
In 2018, Phil returned to the same park bench to share with his daughter where his story began to change.
Everett Gospel Mission’s mantra, People Change Here, is true for all of us, employees, partners, and the people we serve. Transformation is available for all of us, through relational poverty alleviation.
Learn more about relational poverty alleviation through Everett Gospel Mission’s innovative Poverty 101, an engaging, interactive, and insightful workshop equipping neighbors to practice coming alongside one another and experience mutual transformation.
Everett Gospel Mission has been embodying their mission, “Engaging with the Community To Alleviate Poverty” since 1961.
Today, Everett Gospel Mission is a community resource with ten locations across Snohomish county offering a full continuum of care for people desiring to move out of homelessness. They are the only organization in Snohomish County to provide emergency shelter for single men, and the largest organization providing emergency shelter to single women, in addition to providing support for families with children.
