A few weeks ago, I spent a few hours hanging out at Safe Haven, a shelter in downtown San Diego that houses people with mental illnesses.
I was there shooting a story about how the city might have been overcharging property owners downtown on business fees. But I also spent some time meeting a few residents and making pictures.
The success stories were refreshing and the ability to just roam the facility freely was liberating. One of the men I met there was James Kuik, who’d lived at the facility for about six months.
Before lunch, Kuik was sitting in the common area going through a stack of paperwork he was dealing with. He let me photograph him for a few minutes and I tried to just step back and capture the atmosphere of the room.
Please contact Sam Hodgson directly at sam.hodgson@voiceofsandiego.org or 619.550.5664 and follow him on Twitter: twitter.com/samuelhodgson.