FINDING LIGHT - PART III

How we treat the anawim

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"I lived in a Catholic Worker community in Sacramento," McDermott said, "that was in a very poor neighborhood six blocks from the major homeless area."

A year later, he worked for the Chrysalis organization that helps the homeless in LA's Skid Row find a path toward self-sufficiency. He focused on individuals who were transitioning out of prison.

There he lived in the Rampart District, five miles away from Skid Row, but still one of LA's most densely populated areas.

"When you live close by," he insisted, "you cannot just walk away. Everyone knows where you live."

For most JVC volunteers, the intense two-year program is enough.

Not for McDermott.

He moved to Houston and eased into the organization's administrative side where he continued to live in the community he was serving. And he continued to live on $75 a month for food and $75 for personal use.

"You have a life together," he explained, "and that means you have to be there, living and sharing through prayer and community life."

Only after year five was McDermott prepared to take his leave.

"The people I was helping seemed to have a lot of problems that were legal in nature," he said. "So I went to law school."

UT Law and his subsequent three-year assignment clerking for a court in Austin eventually landed him a job as the assistant public defender in the Del Rio Regional Public Defender for Texas RioGrande Legal Aid, Inc.

In 2010, McDermott served as the assistant appellate public defender in the office of the Dallas County Public Defender.