For every homeless person on Honolulu’s streets, there’s a story — one of hardship, bad luck or bad choices. But for every story of despair, there’s a story of hope. Profiled here are three people who found a way to climb out of homelessness through determination and support.

Cidney Tabilang remains sober in memory of her baby girl, Adrenia.

A former crystal meth addict, Tabilang became homeless and lived off and on at Kapalama Canal in Kalihi, estranged from her family, from 2003 to 2013.

She was about six months pregnant, sleeping on an air mattress in a tent at Kapalama, in 2011 when the Waikiki Care-A-Van, operated by the Waikiki Health Center, came by. Social workers offered to take her for a checkup at the center’s PATH clinic for women in Kaimuki. Tabilang went in for an ultrasound that revealed she was pregnant with a baby girl, and then slept in the waiting room the rest of the day. When her daughter, Adrenia Olena Cadiz Robinson, was born Jan. 8, 2012, at Kapiolani Medical Center for Women & Children, Tabilang was ready for a change.

“It came to a point that I was tired of it,” she said. “I had to change my life.”

She entered the Salvation Army Women’s Way residential and outpatient treatment program, which offers a multidisciplinary approach for women and their children through psychiatric services, a 12-step recovery program and parenting classes.

Tabilang, 39, said her daughter was her motivation and remains so, even though she died on Christmas Day 2013 as the result of a kidney defect. Adrenia was only 23 months old.

She visits her daughter’s grave at Hawaiian Memorial Park every Sunday. In January, Tabilang will mark three years of sobriety.

Her life started slipping downhill after going through a divorce in 2003, she said. A friend introduced her to crystal meth and she quickly became addicted.

“It was an escape,” she said. “I forgot about my problems. The whole world just passed and that was just addicting.”

The Farrington High School graduate said she cut all contact with her family, including her then-6-year-old son, while she got lost in “a whole different world” centered around how to get the next hit.

Tabilang’s message to anyone thinking of trying crystal meth, even out of curiosity, is, “Don’t do it. Don’t even try it.”

To pay for her drugs, Tabilang recycled cans or took odd jobs for cash. She camped out mostly at Kapalama Canal when it was less crowded than the situation that prompted city officials to install a chain-link fence there in September. In between she crashed at friends’ homes, and for a few months she lived at Sand Island Beach Park.

Tabilang recalled when the tent she shared with her boyfriend was burned down by others in the encampment. Yet despite the dangers, her addiction kept her there.

“You think what you’re doing is right,” Tabilang said. “It just minuses you from the world.”

During the 10-year period that she was homeless, she gave birth to two sons whose fathers were drug addicts, too. Tabilang lost custody of the boys and they were adopted by another family. She has no contact with them.

After she gave birth to Adrenia, Women’s Way offered her a path out of her addiction. Tabilang completed the program in about a year, which required her to reconnect with her family. The first step was sending a Mother’s Day card to her mom. Her parents responded right away and began visiting her and Adrenia on weekends.

Upon graduating from the program, Tabilang moved back to her parents’ home in Kalihi, where she was reunited with her firstborn son, now 18.

Today Tabilang works part time as an office assistant at Adult Friends for Youth, a nonprofit focused on mentoring troubled youths. She hopes to pursue a degree in social work.

“I like to share my story when I can because it helps with the grieving,” she said. “And maybe someone reading or listening to my story can be inspired to change their life.”

Five years ago Rick Crowell was sleeping under a tarp in the woods behind a church off Kamehameha Highway in Kaneohe. He bathed at the beach and lived on food stamps.

His living situation was still unstable when he met Laurie Tanoura, production manager of The Actors’ Group, at Hank’s Cafe in May 2014. Tanoura, who works as a bartender at the downtown bar, told him the group was in dire need of someone to finish building the set for a play at the Brad Powell Theatre in Iwilei. The 57-year-old Crowell, a former tattoo artist from Kansas whose father was a carpenter and mother a painter, jumped at the opportunity.

Over the course of three days, he used his carpentry skills and creative artistry to build the set for TAG’s production of David Mamet’s “Glengarry Glen Ross.” When he was done, Tanoura handed him the keys to the theater.

“The theater and God saved my life,” said Crowell.

He continues to build sets for TAG’s plays for an honorarium of about $350 per set. The stipend helped him save some money, and combined with Social Security payments, it’s enough to get by on. He stayed temporarily at the men’s shelter at The Institute for Human Services near the theater. He credits counselors there for providing him the help he needed to get back on his feet. He now rents a room in Kalihi.

Nicknamed “Pops,” Crowell is listed in TAG play programs as part of the crew for set design and construction. He said he is grateful that someone gave him a job despite his prison record for drug crimes on the mainland.

Tanoura said she’s glad she decided to take a chance on Crowell.

“I took a leap of faith giving him the keys to the theater just a couple days after I met him,” she said. “Right now he’s doing really well. … Set builders are really hard to find, so he kind of saved our lives.”

Crowell could say the same thing about Tanoura and TAG. For most of his life he was a drug addict. He said he started using illegal drugs in his teens — everything from crack cocaine to methamphetamine and LSD — because he was lonely and the “cool kids” who did drugs seemed to get all the pretty girls.

It was a path that landed him in and out of Kansas and Missouri prisons on assorted drug charges for a total of about 15 years.

Disowned by his family, he decided to clean up in 2009.

“I was just sick and tired of being sick and tired,” he said. “I wasn’t doing real good. I didn’t have a (tattoo) shop any longer, I was living off the streets and I thought, ‘Man, it’s got to get better.'”

So he enrolled in a Salvation Army drug treatment program in Kansas, which he says was pivotal because the counselors there were former addicts who understood his situation. He got clean and eventually was released from parole.

Crowell bought a ticket to Hawaii to see his eldest son, who owns a tattoo shop here. He initially lived with his son but moved out because the home was too small, then bounced from place to place and eventually became homeless. Crowell said living under a tarp in Kaneohe was a low point in his life, made worse by frequent colds and spider bites.

He fell into a depression and attempted to commit suicide by overdosing on Xanax and alcohol. His son found him in time, and an ambulance took him to the emergency room at Castle Medical Center, he said. Every morning, Crowell wakes up remembering that low point and it keeps him sober.

Speaking about Hawaii’s homeless population, Crowell said many need mental health services. But if they’re addicts, like he was, they need to get off drugs first before they can be helped at all.

With pride, Crowell showed off the two Po’okela Awards he received over the summer for his theater work — one for service excellence and one for set design. Instead of feeling invisible to society, he’s moved when play patrons come over to compliment him on a set.

And he’s grateful to have been given another chance.

One year ago, home for Jeffrey Silva and his family was the spot beneath the shade of a large monkeypod tree at Hans L’Orange Park in Waipahu.

Standing there on a recent morning, Silva, 17, remembered how they parked their Dodge SUV by the tree below the baseball field, where it was generally quiet except for passing traffic.

From January to August of last year, Silva, his parents and five of his siblings lived out of the car, unable to keep up with the rent for their home and other expenses. Two other siblings, including a sister who was pregnant, stayed with an aunt.

The family had moved from Alaska to Hawaii, where his mother grew up in Kalihi. His dad, formerly a bus driver, had fallen ill and was unable to work, and his mother cared for him full time.

Since they did not all fit in the car, the boys usually slept outside on the ground. Silva was 15 years old at the time.

“You get used to it after a while,” he said.

The quiet teenager does not like to elaborate on those difficult days. He said he would walk his three younger siblings to elementary school, then walk to his classes at Waipahu High School. After school they returned to the park.

While some of his older siblings found jobs and eventually managed to help get the entire family — five brothers, three sisters and their parents — into a rental apartment up the street, Silva was having a tough time. He got caught stealing and dropped out of school.

His life turned around when he enrolled in Adult Friends for Youth’s Clinical Competency Based High School Diploma Program, also known as C-Base. He was among 17 students who graduated Sept. 1 from the program, earning the equivalent of a high school diploma.

Silva is now working full time at McDonald’s in Pearl City and trying to save money for college. He sees education as a way out of his struggles and aspires to go to medical school.

“Before, I never really thought about my future that much,” he said. “Going through AFY, now I ask: What am I going to do with my life?”

Lisa Tamashiro, AFY’s senior clinical specialist, recalled Silva as a fast learner who was quiet at first before opening up to adults and his peers.

“He caught on very quickly,” she said. “He was a very independent learner.”

C-Base students take courses while going through group counseling and life-skills training.

For Silva, what worked was meeting people who were caring and sensitive to his family’s situation, as well as being in a fun learning environment, he said. The program gave him hope, which is the message he wants to share with other children on the streets.

“There’s always hope,” he said. “You just gotta keep your head high. Just do the best you can in your situation. … Stay in school.”