Former Homeless Teen Urges SVHS Students to Keep Dreaming

At age 14, Roy Juarez Jr. faced grown-up problems. He was living in the streets of San Antonio, Texas, with his two younger siblings under his care. His mother’s new boyfriend did not want kids and none of his nine uncles and aunts would take them in after his parents split.

A family offered to take his 9-year-old sister and another took his 2-year-old brother, but they did not have room for Juarez.  So he couch-surfed, living with whoever would take him in, for the next two years. Some days he ate packets of ketchup when he could not find dinner, but at school teachers wanted him to dream and excel.

“Do you know how hard it is to dream when you have your 2-year-old little brother in your hands and he is crying because he is hungry?” Juarez asked, rocking an imaginary baby in his arms. “And to look at him and say, ‘Mi hijo, Baby Ray, just go to sleep and I promise you … I promise you tomorrow I’ll find you food.’”

Speaking to ninth and 10 grade students at Seneca Valley High School on Thursday as part of his “MyBag, MyHome:  Homeless by Choice Tour,” Juarez said he wanted to inspire students not to give up on life despite circumstances they may find themselves in and to understand the value of higher education.

During the 300 city tour Juarez is couch-surfing again, this time armed with a university degree and after an appearance on CNN’s “Latino in America” series. His story is also featured as part of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series, in the extraordinary teens issue.

In the school auditorium, students alternate between pin drop silence and loud raucous laughter when Juarez talks about his high school girlfriend. A few students rub their eyes when Juarez tells them how he drowned out his mother’s voice calling for him through the walls as his father beat her up, only for the voice to haunt him during school hours.

He puffs his chest when he talks about running interference to give his mother and his siblings time to escape from yet another hide hole after his father found them. To an attentive audience, Juarez recalls hastily pulling bed sheets to pile his clothes and getting away from his father, but the point he keeps circling back to is transcendence.

“Never allow what you have seen to keep you from dreaming,” he said. “Never allow what you are going through or what you have gone through take away your future. It is yours and nobody else’s.”

While students get motivation to succeed in life from their teachers, Principal Marc Cohen hearing from Juarez was important because he is closer to their age, looks like them and even shares circumstances with some students. More importantly, he said, Juarez is not an educator.

“The kids hear from their teachers everyday,” he said. “This is somebody else who is coming in and sharing their life story in a much more authentic way to the kids because it is not a person who works at the school who they see everyday.”

Freshman Swati Pandar related to some experiences Juarez talked about. Some things moved her to tears. She said she was encouraged to succeed.

“I thought that if he got far in life and he was homeless, I can get far in life and achieve my goals too.”

Her freshman friend Tricia LaPorte was surprised by how far Juarez had come.

“He has a sad story but he has come far,” LaPorte said. “I am really shocked that someone can come from that far down and make it to where he is today.”

Juarez said he has since forgiven his parents. He said he is paying the favor forward to pay all the people who helped him out when he needed it. He urges students to be the change the want to see in others and to love themselves enough to keep dreaming.

“Never stop dreaming,” he said. “Dreaming is the only gift you can give yourself that no one can take away from you.”