Writing

Before the Doors Open

A sample narrative exploring service, story, and quiet resolve

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Joy sat quietly at her kitchen table, watching the first spring blossoms sway outside her window. She wrapped both hands around a mug of strong coffee, letting the warmth push back against the lingering chill of the morning. Still, her mind refused to settle.

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She kept seeing the young man she had met the day before at the resource center. His name was Derrick. He was far too young to be navigating the streets of Los Angeles alone.

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Time was not a luxury Joy often allowed herself. She gently pushed the thought aside, grabbed her keys and backpack, and stepped out into the day. Downtown Los Angeles was already awake by the time she arrived at the Los Angeles Services and Response Center, housed inside a church just off Skid Row.

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Joy had served as the center’s executive director for five years, though the title felt inadequate to describe the work. Her entire adult life had been shaped by service, first overseas, spending nearly a decade in Ghana with the Peace Corps, and later at home, after earning her master’s degree so she could continue supporting marginalized communities in the United States.

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Over the past year, the work had become harder.

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Federal funding cuts and two grants that were not renewed had left the center operating on bare bones. Joy was doing the work of three people, stretching limited resources to meet an ever-growing need. Each day, more people arrived seeking help, housing referrals, mental health support, a sense of safety, and each day, Joy and her team faced the reality that they could not help everyone.

Turning people away never got easier.

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Other shelters and resource centers were struggling too. As funding disappeared, the ripple effects were impossible to ignore: untreated mental health crises, deepening addiction, fewer paths to employment. Joy felt the weight of it constantly, the fear that no matter how hard they worked, it would never be enough.

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Still, she refused to let that fear define what came next.

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Joy had lived with very little before. She had slept in a one-room hut in rural Africa, learned how to endure discomfort, and discovered what it meant to rely on community. Hard work didn’t scare her. What mattered was purpose.

She knew the resource center couldn’t survive by staying invisible.

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So she made a decision. Joy chose to open the doors wider, not physically, but through story. She began sharing the experiences of the people who came through the center: short videos, quiet moments, day-in-the-life glimpses that allowed others to see what being unhoused in Los Angeles truly looked like. Not statistics. Not headlines. People.

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Her hope was simple. If people could see, really see, the lives unfolding inside the resource center, they might choose to help. With public funding disappearing, community support could become a lifeline the organization had never fully explored.

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That morning, as Joy stepped into her office and set her bag down, she felt the familiar mix of exhaustion and resolve. She had no guarantees. But she believed in the power of connection, and in the idea that stories, when told with care, could move people to act.