His tolerance had limits. In his final report, Mark would give Joe and Christina only an average chance of becoming self-sufficient. He would also recommend letting future families join the program only if both adults were willing to work. But asked how the experience affected him, he checked the box marked "positive."
Over the summer, Mark and his wife had faced an unexpected opportunity to adopt two young girls from foster care. Mark knew taking in the girls would leave them living nearly paycheck to paycheck. But he thought of Christina and Joe, and he said yes.
"Do I want to drive an old van like they do? Do I want to live where they do? No. But I don't want to live in a $5-6-700,000 house anymore," Mark said.
Dave, too, started thinking of life differently. He had always taken seriously his Christian duty to help the poor. Every Christmas, he and his wife would drive downtown to hand money to the homeless. Now he saw that cash was the least of it.
"You can hand them $10 and check it off your list," he said. "Or you can stop, say, 'Hi, my name is Dave,' and make them feel part of society. . . . I gained the courage to do that."
After they'd talked a while at a donated table -- no more eating on the floor -- Christina, Dave and Mark went out back to enjoy the late-afternoon sun.
The girls rode bikes through the dirt yard, ducking under the jeans that flapped from the clothesline. (The old dryer had finally broken.) Domonic watched to make sure Angel didn't ride into the alley. Joey stood at attention, practicing for ROTC.
As the mentors stood waving at the girls -- and discussed how to get Christina another dryer by winter -- Joe turned into the driveway, home from a fishing trip. He shook hands with Mark and Dave but didn't talk much about his job. "I haven't worked in a while, so I'm a little nervous about it," he said. "But I'm ready. This is what I wanted to do."
A few weeks later, Joe told his mentors the job had fallen through.
He's still looking, Christina says. "No rush."
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stephanie.simon@latimes.com
