I had arrived. I was making 6 figures

 Sometimes it's hard to quiet the negative stereotype around homelessness. It fills us with dehumanizing information about someone we don't even know, haven't even talked with.

When I first met Matthew he was homeless. Then we got chatting. He shared that he had been a high-end chef in New Your City and was now struggling to pull first and last month’s rent together. I asked, "What is your specialty meal?" With a smile he said, "Everything is my specialty meal!" I laughed. He said, "No really, everything."

He was so confident and charming that I said, "Would you be willing to come to our home and cook a meal for (6) couples at $100 a head? You can use the $1,200 for rent money."

A couple days later Matthew gave me a list of ingredients needed for a (7) course meal. A week after that my wife and I, along with (10) friends, had the most delicious and beautiful dinner gathering I have ever experienced. It was beyond magical for everyone!

That’s how Matthew and I began our friendship (7) years ago.

Matthew now has housing and has been giving back by feeding people. He’s hoping to grow his endeavor and needs our help in funding the grocery buying for lots more people in need.

Please read his story. I know it's long but well worth the read. When you are finished, and if you are moved, please consider donating one-time or a recurring amount.

 Here is Matthew’s story in his own words:

From humble beginnings in the slums of Queens, and various group homes and juvenile institutions throughout the city of New York I somehow managed to make a decent life for myself in Manhattan kitchens. Hard work and a willingness to do any task propelled me up the "food chain" and innovative thinking, persistence, and passion helped me to find my place and keep my edge when I arrived.  Like many from such places, and indeed such professions, I did my battles with drugs and alcohal and consider myself extremely fortunate to have walked away from them when i did at the age of 25, but with the motivation of a young daughter whos life i yearned to be a part of, I found the strength to not only clean up my act, but to turn my "job" into a carreer that would transform my life.

My thirst for knowledge, when piqued, is insatiable, and while it was not an easy transition going from flipping burgers with a hangover to plating foie gras while some maniac screams at you, I saw within all the chaos something beautiful; love, creation, art. Food had ever been my "passion", awakened at the age of 7 by my Italian step great grandmother who introduced this poor Irish boy to a world far beyond meatloaf and mashed potatoes, and here, in this Park Ave restaurant where i struggled so mightily, and considered quitting daily at the least, all of the secrets were being revealed. Double the hours i was used to working, competitive rather than team orientated, and even though i had over a decade of experience in food, (beginning with summer jobs since 11yo), EVERYTHING was new to me, the methods, the techniques, even aome of the appliances and ingrediants. I hated every second of it, but in my heart i knew that this was what Picasso must have felt when he traded in his 8 pack of Crayolas for the mega 64 crayon box.

Both the journey and the destination were simultaniously traumatic and rewarding, but they are stories for another time, saying only for the sake of this story that i have learned under two of the best chefs this country has produced as well as several others less famous but no less skilled, but the truth in it all is that i will happily learn from anyone that knows something i dont. If my dishwasher knows his mothers recipe for rice, i learn it, i may not use it, i may change it beyond recognition, it may be the glue holding a dish together, but what ever it ends up being i want to know it. I would eventually come to love what i did for a living, despite the 100+ hour work weeks, the 115degree ambient temperatures, the constant aggression and a new emergencies ready to pop up at any second, i had found my place in the world, and more importantly to me, i had found my art.

Its hard to say in hindsight which started first, the medical problems or the psychological ones. It was certainly my mind that snapped first, but even then, in 2010, I couldn’t remember the last time i felt physically "good". Luckily, my mental break was a passive one, to the best of my knowledge all i did was sit on the edge of my bed for 2 and a half days, my apartment showed no evidence to the contrary, but with dozens of missed calls and texts on the phone beside me, and my landlord, who feared me hurt or dead, coming though my bedroom window, i had no explanation for the lost time. I was still in the clothes i left work in.

 Mental illness is not at all uncommon for Chefs, or even lower level food service workers in major cities. Its an extremely stressful job in an incredibly harsh and hectic enviornment. Granted, there are far more impoortant deadlines in this world then the production of someones dinner, yet when faced with several thousand such deadlines, in a very limited time, with very limited help or support, it can get a bit daunting...and thats just someone working the line. On the executive levels we must also account for payroll, budgeting, ordering and inventory, dealing with employee problems, dealing with owners problems, dealing with dozens of vendors, licencing departments, inspectors, coordinating with the bar, the service staff, the porters, all the while being mindfull of health, fire and saftey codes AND somehow create exciting enough dishes to bring customers to your restaurant and not the one next door.

I cant say with full certainty if this was what caused my brain to turn off for a few days, i would imagine its the most likely case, but back then i was not prepared to believe it, I loved what i did, i took tremendous pride in how good i did it and the work it took to get there, I didnt want it to stop, i didnt know if i could even do anything else, yet i was suddenly very afraid.  I took what i expected would be a few weeks off, a friend in Bellingham WA needed some help following a surgery and i thought that might be the best thing for me. I convinced myself that the incident was just an anomoly and with a bit of time off id be fine. 

I fell in love with the Pacific Northwest more or less immediately, Bellingham wasnt exactly my thing, though incredibly beautiful, but a few months later when i moved down to Seattle to suit my "cityboy" mentality, took lighter work at lesser positions, (and much less pay), hoping that would ease my way back into things. I did want to return to NYC at some point but i also wanted to be sure that there would be no reoccurance of whatever happened to me in 2010. Since i had no plans of long term stay i lived in the local hostels, and when money was tight, id take my tent into Gasworks park for the weekends when hostel rates were higher. Pretty much every vacation ive ever had has been spent camping, hiking and climbing, so roughing it wasnt a big deal to me, especially when it allowed me to keep enough of my paycheck to survive. This was how and when i first became aquainted with the homeless community of Seattle and in many ways, the beginning of what this current project is all about. It wasnt anything official, or have a set day of the week as it would come to in later years, but whenever i could convince enough people to comb the foodbanks for as much as they can carry, and impromptu community meal would be prepared oin the grills of Gasworks for anyone who was hungry.

"Sleeping rough", even though it was just a weekend thing, really forced my worsening physical condition to the forefront for the first time. As i said earlier, i hadnt felt "good" in years, but as a workaholic, a smoker with a poor diet, someone who ingested every drug and drink i could get my hands on from 15-25, and already getting old at 36 i was coming face to face with my own mortality and not feeling particurally chipper about. The frequent heartburn had become constant nausea, the shortness of breath became gagging and choking just from running a block for the bus and these dizzy spells seemed to come on for no fathomable reason. But...i dont have insurance currently, ObamaCare was not yet a reality, and i didnt even have enough money to house myself friday thru sunday, such complaints were just going to have to wait.

 As summer turned to fall, a good friend, and owner of my favorite hostel in Seattle, oiffered me better work along with a place to stay in his own home, yet i would still return to Gasworks at least once or twice a week whenever i could afford a few groceries to throw on the grill. I had come to really like the people i had met there and took a lot of joy in feeding them, Ive never had much in the way of family, but any chance i got i would always invite friends over for a meal, and this felt no different albeit with an outdoor venue and a slightly more relaxed dress code. By the time the holidays rolled around i was gone, a bit more then a year had passed since my mental break in 2010 and it was time to get back to doing what i do. I accepted an executive chef position at a country club along the Michigan/Wisconsin border that sounded a lot more appealing then returning strait to the high volume NYC kitchens that already broke me once, and left the PNW for the UP.

The job was a job, pretty anti-climatic for my grand return, but i was back in bright whites, yelling at my line cooks and feeling that things were getting back on track. I didnt particularly like it there truth be told, 200 odd wealthier than average rednecks who paid their dues and met high minimums for the sole amenity of exclusivity. No golf course, no tennis courts, no pool or game room, the bar wasnt even all that well stocked, all they got in return for thousands of dollers each year was the right to tell people, "You cant come in here". I would love to claim myself as the real amenity of the club, and perhaps i could have been, at their request i created wonderfully entrancing menus each season, which they all approved of, but still only ordered liver and onions or fish fry. C'est la Vie, it was a job, and after 2 and a half years, with offers from New York and Miami and a board member i couldnt stomach about to sit a year as president i gave my notice and prepared to leave.

The plan, as i had been in the UP for nearly three years and hadnt seen anthing outside of the kitchen that i worked in, was to put my few possions into storage for a month and enjoy a month of spring in the Nicolette national forrest as i pondered my next move. Instead, two days before i was set to head out, i picked up my last paycheck from work, headed back home to finish packing, and just like 4 years earlier, i sat on the edge of my bed and didnt move for about 2 days, this time roused by an irrelevant text message instead of someone coming through my window, but besides that, exactly the same. Nothing before nor since has ever scared me half as much, this time, the second time, stood as blatant proof that this was no anomoly, i was broken.

For perhaps the first time in my life, i was truly ashamed of myself, i didnt want anyone who knew me to see me, i was scared, anxious, overwhelmed but more than anything, ashamed. How could this happen to me, why would this happen to me? New York and Miami was out of the question now, i was too well known in both places and the best possible outcome in my current condition would be me burning bridges that should never be burnt. Its hard to accurately say why i chose to return to Seattle instead, but while spending those weekends in the past i discovered a certain anonminity in being part of the homeless community, and anominity was exactly what i was after right then.

I returned to Seattle in the spring of 2015, sleeping on a porch of an unused property in Wallingford and worsening by the day both physically and mentally. Even now, I dont know how to NOT work, its what i do, its in my DNA. Since i felt like a basket case all of a sudden, and knew i could not handle even the slightest responsibilty at the moment i filled a dishwasher vacancy at two ajoining restaurants in the neighborhood, owned by the same woman. I knew that that was all i should be doing, besides getting both medical and psycological help, but one of the restaurants was barely breaking even, the other restaurant was hemmoraging money and going nowhere, and if im being completely honest here, i had a huge crush on the owner, and even though i was far too messed up mentally for a relationship, i though the least i could do was fix her business.

Physically, i was to the point of vomiting daily, often with bits of my esophogas coming up, i could swoon just by turning my head too quickly and even walking as slow as i could didnt help my breathing. Mentally, i was a raw frayed nerve with a white knuckle grip on my composure at all times. And in the end, after several months of hard work turning the business into a more effecient opperation and ready to launch the failing side of the shop into a neo-fusion cafe that i was sure would succeed in that neighborhood, the landlord refused to renew their lease and they had 3 months to vacate the premisis.

Straw that broke the camels back, it shouldnt of been, disapointing surely, but i was paid for every thing i had done. I couldnt blame the owner, id met the land lady, she was 90 and bat shit crazy. I could rough it out a few months as she looked for a new location, or, with my resume i could write my own ticket for any restaurant in this town, yet in my broken mind, all it meant was doom, doom, doom. I cant really blame anyone but myself for all the depression and frustration that followed, I knew to begin with that i was not well enough to take on such responsibility and succeeded only in exacerbating the problems. Some weeks earlier, Rex Holhbien and the good folks at Facing Homelessness helped me to raise $1200 at a $100/plate event he and his wife Cindy paid for and hosted in their home. This money was supposed to go towards a security deposit on an apartment, yet with work about to end and me a shattered mess, it went instead to a small RV where i would hide from the world for the next 19 months.

I had never given much thought to homeless people before, or indeed homelessness in general, I have never been a judgemental person so i have never seen them as anything less than me, nor treated them any differently that i would treat anyone, but being one who ALWAYS worked, the world they lived in simply never fell into my view. Even a few years earlier when i spent weekends with them in the park i did not feel a part of their world, i had plans, i had purpose, i had options. Now, i had nothing, or at least convinced myself i had nothing. Sure, i could make a phonecall and be working by this afternoon, but even if i could push past the constant nausea, the dizzyness and the weak lungs, how many more mental breakdowns am i allowed before im labled "unhirable" and how many more before im sitting on the edge of a bed forever. Now i was truly a part of this community, a community that is looked down upon by almost everyone, yet is far more accepting and helpful than any. The meals i once did in Gasworks park were revived for an encore performance, but this time more from need then from alturism. I really did not want to interact with anyone in my present condidtion, but i had to eat, i needed a place to cook, and i simply cant make food for myself when others around me are hungy, and through the sharing of food and breaking of bread together i became accepted into this new family, which was my first step to finiding myself anew.

Its difficult, if not impossible, to fathom the complexities of homelessness for someone who has never faced it before. Little things we do without thinking, showering, charging your phone, putting on dry clothes after being caught in a storm, are rare and precious luxuries to someone in a tent, shit, to some, that tent is a luxury. Just to do a load of laundry one would need to be at the Urban Reststop before 9am, and wait possibly as late as 5pm only to be told that they will have to come back and try tomorrow. And these are just the little things, bigger things, real things, health, housing, employment, stability, how can you hope to figure such things out when your next meal and where you'll sleep that night is still a mystery. I account for every choice i make in this life, and homelessness was a choice i made consciously because facing the world as i presently was just too frightening.

With the help of several homeless friends, (many of whom i had known since my first time around in 2011), the wonderful people at Facing Homelessness and one very determained social worker in UW Medical, after a while i began to journey away from my RV, get on ObamaCare and start being seen by doctors as i saught psychological help. After a few very discouraging experiences with the mental health agencies in the area i finally began to be counseled at Pioneer Human services who would eventually help me get subsidised housing and apply for SSDI and other social services. I worked,. as i always do, but thanks to those who follow and support Facing Homelessness, i was able to get by doing small catering affairs, which was all i could actually manage at that point. And through those kind folks who gave me work i met some who would soon become truly beloved friends. Starting while i was still in my RV and continuing for the next 3 years i also volunteered my weekends to Gift of Grace church, putting on their weekly meal that is open to all. Ive always filled my time with work, often, and especially now, to help keep my mind free of all that torments it. Its easy for me to lose myself in work, and this work, putting on the weekly Grace Feast, added a purpose to my passion that had never existed before.

I was still struggling physically, diagnosed with emphasema and a variety of reflux and digestive disorders, and struggling even more mentally with what they would call PTSD and recurrent depression, but for the first time, i was at least recieving treatment for my ailments, and while i still refused psycotropic medications i was seeing a therapist weekly as well as meeting with the Pastor of Gift of Grace weekly for coffee, which i got far more out of then the therapist could provided. I also, somehow without my doing anything, attracted an amazing support system of friends and associates that helped my mental well being more then anything. I still had a long way to go, but after 3 years now back in Seattle i was for the first time actually thinking about my future. But then of course, as luck would have it...I died.

March 22 2018, shortly after 5pm, I felt a knot between my shoulder blades. I stood up and tryed to work the knot out by stretching, but it grew and grew and grew until i had no doubts that i was having a heart attack. Not one to panic, but also without a phone, i knocked on a neighbors door and asked him to call 911, then got into a cold shower to stay conscious. I was rushed to Swedish Cherry Hill and died on the operating table shortly after arrival. After nearly 24 hours of surgeries, and another 9 days on life support i opened my eyes again the day before Easter. Panic set in almost immediately as i realized i had no time to prepare the eggs benidicts for the following days Grace Feast. Chef Matt was back.

For the next, crucial 11 months, the system truly failed me, i gained disability status and $1000/mo yet lost the ObamaCare that, in my currrent medical condition, was worth WAY more. To spare the reader all of the depressing and beaurocratic details i will say only that my condition obviously worsened, I lost my ability to walk for a while due to neuropathy which caused me to gain 60lbs and wear out the disc between my L4 and L5 vertebre before i was finally able to get on Medicare and start to be treated not only for the initial heart disease but now for all the problems that had risen because of not getting treated for it.

It was a slow recovery and made no easier by the anxiety and depression that i still deal with, (though now with the help of medication), yet both mind and body began to repair until the Pandemic put all of our lives on pause. Being high-risk for Corona really limited my physical recovery, but it reminded me of what i should be doing, and that helped greatly with my mind, and spirit. With so many food banks and community meals closing their doors during the pandemic i knew that it was high time that i stepped back into the ring. In all honesty, i probably shouldn’t, but the pain that accompanies these acts are more then compensated for my the joy it brings to my soul. Being on disability, my resource options are extremely limited, some kind folks occasionally donate food and/or money to this but the vast majority has come from my own very shallow pockets, pockets that are soon to grow shallower when the Pandemic food assistance ends on Sept 1.

I currently feed weekly; 10 homeless folks sheltering in Gift of Grace church in Wallingford, and another 10 in subsidized housing in Capitol Hill, if and when there is anything left over there is also 22 at the Westlake tiny house village that get fed, and for both Thanksgiving and Christmas, in a jointed effort with the Power of We, myself and a handful of really awesome kids feed as many as we possibly can. What i am hoping to accomplish here is to continue to feed these people, hopefully feed even more people, and if this grows, empower other cooks/chefs to do the same in their communities or wherever the need is greatest. I simply can not afford to continue to do all of these meals and would love to be able to continue and with enough support, grow this into something that can make a huge difference in one of the greatest problems this city (and world) faces.

I am nobody special, I have a good skill, a caring heart, and a desire to make a difference. 100% of everything donated goes directly to feeding hungry people.