We met this young lady in an unnamed part of Philadelphia in June 2014. She approached our car with a look of expectation, and so we rolled down the window to talk to her. She said she had a dog with her, whom she had rescued when it was chained up to a fence and left to die. She told us she was going to move to another state and become a veterinarian. She said she had plans. She was going to make a better life for herself.

Then we asked her where she was living, and she said it was in “The Hole.” At first she was going to show us and we were going to go with her to see her living conditions, but then she thought about it and became evasive. It became evident that she didn’t want “The Hole” to be discovered, thus putting her and the other girls living there at risk. After some back and forth I asked her why. What was she doing here? How did she get to this place?

“I made a lot of bad choices in my life,” she said.

We finally told her, “We are coming back for you. We are going to come back to this corner and we are going to find you and bring you something.” As we drove away, tears began to fall. It was our first real semi in-depth conversation with a person literally living out on the street and begging for money.

The day we left we bought a backpack and filled it with clothing and other nonperishable supplies. But the crush of everyday life set in, and the little black backpack sat in our car for entirely too long. It was not until August that we returned.

This time there was another young lady standing on the same corner, holding a different cardboard sign. We soon learned she was one of the young ladies living in “The Hole” and we asked earnestly to see our young friend from last June. She immediately ran across the street to get her.

We went over to the Hess station to wait for her. When she came into view we were shocked to see the difference between the bright-eyed but hungry girl in June and the now harrowed and shaking girl wearing men’s clothing, inside out and backwards, and barely able to focus on us, though she clearly stated that she remembered us.

Heroin. Young lives teetering between life and death on the mean streets of Philadelphia. This is a shock to people who are insulated from it, but we must not hide our faces from it. This is the ugly face of poverty, addiction, prostitution, and hopelessness.

Catholic Philadelphia Outreach is dedicated to bringing to life stories such as these. We want to remind everyone of the humanity of each and every person we meet who is in dire situations, each one unique, each one with a story to tell. They aren’t “the homeless,” some monolithic entity without a face. They are you and me. They are Christ.

All images © 2015 Catholic Philadelphia Outreach.