People living on street describe homeless issue as being a revolving door in Bay Area

CONCORD, Calif. (KGO) -- Of the 28,000 people on the streets in the Bay Area, many describe the issue as a revolving door. One moment being in a shelter, the next on the streets and back again.

Wednesday was the last day Donnie Diego and Douglas Mohr will be neighbors.

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Diego has reached the end of his 90 days in the Contra Costa County homeless shelter on Arnold Industrial Way.

"I thought that would never be me because I had too many that loved me and would never let that happen."

But that was before Diego split up with his girlfriend of a decade about four years ago, and his world unraveled.

"it doesn't take anything extreme, it can be just something as simple as a heartbreak."

Diego lost his job providing workers in the hospitality industry, then his home and his car. Wednesday he goes back out on the street where there are many perils.

"Going to bed, finding someplace to sleep without being hassled, by either property owners or the public in general, and you run the risk of being arrested."

Mohr's downward spiral began when cancer claimed his mother in 2000. Since then it's been a revolving door of the streets, shelters, then back on the street.

"I've been out seven years, I've never had a problem through the cold, the rain, the floods. I've made it through all that, but there's a lot of people who can't."

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Each has heard countless plans to reduce homelessness, through job education, mental health services, funding increases. Diego agrees money might help, but not the way you think.

"If someone found a way to make a dollar from helping the homeless, the problem would be solved almost overnight."

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