I dream about changing policies, HRA in particular, some policies governing financial aid for students, stuff like that. So that’s why I am going into public administration. It's Like Gandhi said, “be the change you wish to see in the world” so if I can change and get a few other people to change then its like a domino effect. 

I was released from prison after eight and a half years, but it’s not how you start out at the gate, it’s how you finish. I remember there were times I would be on the train and I’d be so embarrassed because I was dirty. And I would look like I had been there the last 5 days and you know people are working and they're fresh and clean and everything. And I used to just look for a hole to crawl into.

I used drugs for a lot of years.  I started using at fifteen.  I came from Puerto Rico for a new life.  I didn’t know how to speak English.  The first word I learned is “dope.”  I have a friend – she studied Culinary Arts at Project Renewal.  She talked to me about this school and I told her, “I want to go.”  I said, “I want to cook. I want to be a chef.” 

I'm happy to have my kids back. My kid helps me with the computer. My family trusts me, I am here now and they can depend on me.

My girlfriend got pregnant after we got out of high school. She was about 19. I wound up getting a job, and I wound up hustling, selling dope, stuff like that. I got married at 22, I had two kids then. At 29, my wife died in a car accident. We had four kids. I was really close to her and I really missed her. I started drinking alcohol heavily every day. Still smoked marijuana, then I was smoking crack. I stopped paying my bills and lost my job.

I had a basketball scholarship but I lost interest when the drugs took over. I started talking to myself but I didn’t get diagnosed with schizophrenia until I was in prison, but you never know you’re sick until you go and ask somebody why am I doing this?