Thanks to a community of resources that work together, locals are finding hope even in their most desperate times. The struggles people living on the streets experience every day is detailed in this gritty and heartbreaking article recently published in the Lowell Sun.

Tracy Paquette is a nurse who finds time between her two jobs and two children to pack her car full of donated necessities, drive around Lowell, and distribute help to the homeless.

She met Jay when she was working at the Lowell Transitional Living Center. The two of them would sit together and Jay would reminisce quietly about his old life — a shower whenever he wanted one, clothes that were clean.

“He wants to have a normal life, or as close to normal as any of us get,” Paquette says. “But of course, facing all those roadblocks, he would get kind of discouraged so I’d try to be a cheerleader for him.”

Overdoses, prison, homelessness. Jay Quattrochi has hope on his side (VIDEO)

Read more: http://www.lowellsun.com/breakingnews/ci_31019410/back-from-hell-choosing-life#ixzz4opPCxDmn