SACRAMENTO COUNTY, Calif. — The first thing you'll notice when stepping into 57-year-old Evans Edward's sleeping cabin in South Sacramento is a softball-sized disco ball hanging from the ceiling.
"I've never been to the disco all my life, but I watch TV and I see this thing and its reflections. Then I found (a disco ball) in the thrift store so I bought it," he said. "Now, I have a disco in my room."
Edward said he was abandoned by his parents early in life and doesn't recall his birth place, but he spent his early years in Nigeria struggling to get by.
Where he grew up, the rich got richer and the poor got poorer, he said, but the opportunity to have a fruitful life seemed much greater in the U.S. So he packed his bags for California where he had relatives and left Nigeria at 39 years old.
He found a home in Sacramento working on high end tires until a workplace injury put him out of commission as the COVID-19 pandemic was starting.
"I had my injury at work and I told my boss, but he didn't send me to the hospital or anything. He told me to go home and put some ice on it," Edward told ABC10. "I was terminated because of my injury due to me not coming to work every now and then because I was going to the hospital."
Being unemployed, injured and without housing almost drove Edward to take his own life, he said, but then he heard back from the homeless housing placement program BACS and they said they found a place for him to stay.
The day after Christmas 2023, Edwards was given the key code to his own sleeping cabin at Sacramento County's second Safe Stay community on 7001 East Parkway.
Edward joins 48 other Sacramento residents who have moved into the East Parkway Safe Stay sleeping cabins over the past six weeks, and county officials say they have room for six more people at the community.
"I'm looking up to wherever the system pushes me because I know I am humble. I keep myself upright. So whatever the system offers me—I'm ready," Edward said.
He plans on finding avenues for education so he can learn more skills including the ability to write.
Read more about the recent updates in Sacramento County's Safe Stay communities in our related report.
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