JANICE AND DANIEL
Homeless for Love

WHAT WOULD YOU DO FOR LOVE? WOULD YOU LITERALLY GIVE UP EVERYTHING TO BE WITH THAT SPECIAL SOMEONE? Before you answer, think of the worst situations you could ever find yourself in. Would you panhandle on the streets for a few dollars to buy a meal? Would you sleep in a tent flooded by torrential rain and give up the only dry spot? Would you isolate yourself from your family?

Janice and Daniel – we aren’t using their last names – hadn’t thought about those questions when they arrived in Hawaii last fall. They were here to meet her parents. They thought there were going to share good news; they wanted to get married.

The two met in the Philippines in the weeks before their trip to the Hawaii. They had been hired for an assignment by the same modeling agency. Janice was 17 at the time; Daniel was all of 23. And while both have striking good looks, it wasn’t Daniel’s hazel eyes or easy smile that attracted her to him. It was his morals. As Janice puts it, “It’s very hard to find models who have morals.”

And their first date? “I asked him if he wanted to go to church with me. From there we knew we never wanted to be apart and we made the decision to get married,” says Janice.

It doesn’t take much to be skeptical of the young couple. Marriage at an age when some teenagers are still driving with a learner’s permit? And while both were earning their keep as international models, does anyone in their late teens or early 20s really know what life is about? For most of us, the answer is no.

So it is no wonder that Janice’s mother’s reaction was “less than thrilled,” her daughter quietly recalls. So much so that she threw Daniel out of their home, and called the police.

“I remember, I ran out the door. I was crying. Then I saw him get into the police car and it was the worst moment of my life. That was the moment I made my choice of my husband or my family,” says Janice.

That was also the moment they chose to live their life on the streets. It began with a bus ride.

The cops let Daniel out a couple of blocks away from Janice’s family home. She had tearfully told him to meet her at a neighborhood park. “She came out running and crying and she said, ‘Let’s go. Let’s go. The bus (operates) 24 hours and we can sleep on the bus,’” remembers Daniel. They didn’t take much with them – the clothes on their backs, and Janice’s small, blue blanket. He laughs as he recalls that day because they found out soon enough that they were wrong.

When the bus driver told them that this was their last stop, they found themselves at Waimea Bay in the middle of the night. They walked onto the sand of the famous big wave surfing beach. Then, as if it were a scene from a Hollywood movie, it started to rain.

With no other option, they ran across the beach in search of shelter towards a small cave off in the distance. But before they could find refuge in the dark and dank space, they had to fight their way through hordes of hungry mosquitoes. When they finally reach the black compound, breathless and wet, they were greeted by the rancid smell of urine. Unable to stand the stench, the shivering couple ran back to the park and spent the night in a bathroom, where they stayed until the next bus came at daybreak.

“I like to say we started out with one blue blanket,” says Daniel. “Yes we struggled from the beginning but I believe that you attract what you want and Janice and I had dreamt of living on the North Shore of Hawaii and here we were.”

While it wasn’t exactly the North Shore lifestyle they had dreamed of, the couple made the best of their lot. With what little money they had, they spent $60 on a tent and food, and made their way to Hauula Beach Park on the Windward Coast of Oahu. They learned how to live off food bank donations and dollar value meals at McDonald’s. That’s when they had money to spend on dollar meals.

“We were really hungry, and (one day) we didn’t have money, we didn’t have food and we needed to eat,” says Daniel. “So, we go to Waikiki to sit on the streets and ask for money. But people think because we are beautiful that it was a scam, and so we take some dirty clothes from our bag and tried to make ourselves look dirty and then I sit Janice down alone and I watch from far away. She just sat there and put a plate that said ‘Hungry and Homeless.’ She sat for six hours and we got $16. Right away we went to McDonald’s and got a double cheese burger.”

You would think that, at this point, most young people with a home to go to would give up the homeless life. In fact, Janice’s parents were searching for her, putting up posters around their neighborhood. But the couple says giving up on each other was never an option, even when conditions became almost intolerable.

Says Janice: “I remember one day we get off the bus and it’s raining so much and all of our papers; passport, documents, everything is there in the tent (in Hauula). Then we see that our tent is flooded and my computer is floating in the tent. Our clothes that we had washed were covered in dirt and dirt was in the sleeping bag and everything was wet. So we squeezed out things and we sleep on the floor and there was a little corner on a little higher ground and this was where he put me, and he slept in the water.”

In the midst of the challenge of living at a beach park – they had to “break camp” on a regular basis to renew their camping permit — and being worried about the challenges of surviving on so little, Janice and Daniel learned to cope. She was introduced to someone who helped her make it to the semifinals to be a contestant on the hit cable television show, “America’s Next Top Model.” Talking to the couple, you’re struck by the fact that they were as excited about getting a trip for two to Los Angeles, where they were put up in a fancy hotel with a big bed and shower, as they were about Janice’s chances to be on the show.

Back in Honolulu, they got an introduction through a friend to a family that allowed them to put up their tent on private property on the North Shore, right on the beach. Janice got a job at a clothing retailer. She commutes daily on the bus, and Daniel travels in with her to work, then heads back to the North Shore to spend the day. In the late afternoon, he travels back to town to meet Janice, and they travel home together.

She also made contact with her family and slowly began to reestablish ties with her parents. The process of reconciliation was speeded along with the couple announced that they had been married at Hauula Beach Park, by a pastor who conducts a ministry for the homeless. They tied the knot earlier this year just a few days after Janice turned 18.

And their days of living on the beach in a tent are coming to an end. Her parents will be overseas for six months, and they’ve offered their home to Janice and Daniel. They’ll put away their tent and sleeping bags.

But this outcome wasn’t foretold last fall, when Janice ran away from her home in tears, and the only plan she had was to spend the night traveling around Oahu on a bus with Daniel.

As they sit near the beach, remembering the good and bad times of the past nine months, Janice says, “It doesn‘t matter how many years I have to know what love is. Some people look at us and say you’re young it won’t last. But, I know a good thing when I see it.”

And she thinks again of the day their small tent was flooded, and Daniel slept in a pool of water to allow her to use the only dry spot in their tent. “After you go through things like that, you can go through anything. You can throw anything at us, really,” says Janice.

Story by: Lehua Kai
Photos: Floyd K. Takeuchi

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