Many homeless people might wonder if anything better will ever be possible for them. But for the last few decades, Father Joe’s Villages in San Diego, California, has helped thousands transform their lives from poverty to self-sufficiency. What began as a sandwich shop and thrift store in the early 1980s has grown into a multicampus operation with more than 600 employees and more than 4,000 volunteers. Many credit Father Joe Carroll with giving them a second chance at life.

Joe Carroll grew up in the Bronx as one of ten children of Irish immigrants. The family was squeezed into a small two-bedroom apartment: four boys in one bedroom, four girls in the other(two of the children died in infancy), the parents in the living room.
Carroll’s parents instilled a sense of community in him early on. “We were poor, and we lived in a neighborhood that cared for the poor,” Father Joe said. “It was just the natural thing to do. If someone in our building lost his job, my mother would cook dinner for the family one day, and somebody else would the next. There was no set schedule—we simply cared for our neighbors in need.”

In 1963, Carroll moved to California with fifty dollars and a dream of making millions. The twenty-two-year-old soon narrowed his career options to three choices: financial genius, Boy Scout executive, or priest. “I chose priest because I could be a Boy Scout chaplain, which I am. And priests count the collection and use math,” said Father Joe. “So it’s the only job where I could be all three.”

After ordination, Father Joe spent eight years as a parish priest in various San Diego neighborhoods. Then one day the bishop informed Father Carroll that he was naming him president of the St. Vincent de Paul Center.

 “I argued with the bishop because I didn’t want to leave parish work,” said Father Carroll, but “he needed the biggest wheeler-dealer, New York hustler he could find, and I was the only one on the list. I tried everything that first year to get fired, but everything eventually worked out. Now, twenty-eight years later, here I am.”