Life had grown so painful for Michelle Walker by early 2022 that she felt like she wanted to just end it.

She had gotten to this place after years of drug addiction, which led her to leave her young son behind, and focus squarely on getting high.

“I stopped coming home,” Walker said. “I would just stay out for months at a time. Eventually, I moved into a tent on the train tracks, because I thought I could get comfortably high there.”

Somewhere along the way, Walker stopped showing up for work and eventually lost her job. With no source of income to draw from, Walker said she felt like she “had to do things degrading to myself” in order to get the money for drugs.

It was at that bleak moment that someone threw her a lifeline and introduced her to the Bay Area Rescue Mission, a faith-based nonprofit that has served the Bay Area community since 1965.

The Richmond organization is reportedly the Bay Area’s largest privately funded homeless shelter, offering more than 80,000 nights of shelter, 90,000 hours of counseling and 1.6 million meals per year. It also provides emergency shelter, transitional housing and one-year programs for recovery from drug and alcohol addiction as well as domestic violence.

The goal is to help get lives back on track — which is certainly something Walker knew she needed. Thus, she decided to sign up for the Bay Area Rescue Mission’s Life Transformation Program in early 2022, committing to a year of classes, training and discipleship to help her get off drugs and get prepared for a new life.

The program ended up working for Walker, who is now drug and alcohol-free, has a promising career in the construction industry and a place to call home. Perhaps most significantly, she’s been reunited with her son.