When Mike L was 16 years old, he lost his father, and was already on the path to losing his way. He dropped out of high school and quickly earned his GED. Though he was able to secure steady work— as a painter and day laborer around metro Denver — as the oldest in his friend group with age and buying power, the drinking and drug use was becoming just as steady. 

For decades he drifted between his mother’s house, friends’ basements, couch-surfing, and housing construction sites he had access to and all that time held regret for not investing his paychecks in himself, buying property, and building credit. He spent most of his 40s and 50s sleeping in his car. But he kept working, even as things got worse: heavier and more frequent drug use, mounting health trouble, and ultimately COPD — a diagnosis that came late and echoed how his father died.

After 10 years in his car and losing hope, “I was praying for death, and asking god to show me something,” he reflects on his lowest point in April 2024, when a stranger walked up to his car— offered him money which Mike declined, but he did begin to attend church with the man to pass time. He realized he needed to get out of his situation and asked, “Where can I go for help?”

He found a Northglenn Police Department navigation program. One of the men there was applying for the Ready to Work program. He knew of RTW, as his brother was a former client, and Mike had actually thought of the program a year prior, but he just wasn’t ready. “Sign me up for that,” he said.

“Navigation got me a phone and within a week a Ready to Work case manager called — and in May 2024, at 56 years old, he walked in and, for the first time in years, felt the change he was praying for.

Ready To Work provided paid employment through an outdoor landscape crew that he could handle despite his lung capacity, housing, support and the structure he’d lacked for decades. Still, he worried that heavy crew labor might be more than his COPD would allow, and he was ready to transition to Fort Lyon residential community on the Western Slope. But the RTW program manager saw him and his future differently and  offered him a role he hadn’t expected: crew supervisor. So began his Bridge House career and soon after moved into an apartment in Lafayette with another RTW client— something he says he couldn’t have done on his own.

Now 57 and 16 months sober, he unknowingly earned the distinction of Ready To Work’s 600th graduate in August. Through his contagious laugh he asks, “Does that get me a ticker-tape parade? Some gift cards?” 

He’s hoping he won’t be asked to give a speech during the annual graduation ceremony in the fall. If he did,  he’d get up on a podium and share, “I don’t have anything to say about myself, but I have a lot of thanking to do. I’d thank the donors who I’ve never met. Thanks to all of the staff at Boulder Bridge House- the same to Aurora and Englewood- I’m sure they’re the same with their clients- down to the front desk workers. 

Last, but not least, thanks to the cities who hire us to do the work. Because that’s what really makes this all run.”

For a man who once prayed to die, the ordinary dignity of a steady paycheck, an apartment, and people who believe in him feels miraculous. “I’m so grateful,” he says. “This place saved me.”