“I can tell how wonderful this place is!” she smiles. “This shelter is a blessing. This place has the peace of God.”
Maria has carried more than most of us could imagine. Her father was shot and killed in their native Puerto Rico. Her twin sister died as a baby. Her son was just 16 when a stray bullet hit his spine and left him paralyzed — he is 25 now. Through it all, Maria, a mother of five, has held on to a quiet, unshakable faith.
When Maria came to the Mission she remembers that it was raining and she was in tears. “I went inside and I [said], ‘Look, I am homeless. It is raining.’ And I started crying because I do not want to stay in the street because somebody could hurt me.” They had one bed left.
“I said, ‘Oh, Jesus. That one is special for me.'” Maria is thriving at Cornerstone. She goes to chapel every morning at 7:15, encouraging other women who are in the program and waiting patiently for her own apartment to open up. Maria has become one of Cornerstone’s most enthusiastic cheerleaders. She tells women she meets on the bus, people on the street, and anyone who asks where she has been and how she is doing.