In 2018, on his birthday, Franco became homeless.
Just a few years earlier, Franco’s life had looked very different. He and his husband shared a home with their beloved dog and cat. They had built a life together and had the stability of a place to call their own. But after Franco’s husband died, everything began to unravel. Franco lost not only the person he loved, but also the financial stability that had allowed him to remain in their home.
Eventually, Franco found himself living out of his truck.
For months, the truck became his home. He slept there while trying to figure out what came next, carrying with him the grief of losing his husband and the uncertainty of not knowing where he would live.
Then Franco connected with Ramsey County and Aeon.
Eric, an Aeon staff member, worked with Franco and the county to help him secure an apartment at Renaissance Box in downtown Saint Paul. The timing could hardly have been more dramatic. Franco moved into his new home just before a major snowstorm hit the Twin Cities.
The next morning, Franco looked outside and saw that his truck had been buried in the snow.
For someone who had been sleeping in that truck, the moment carried enormous meaning. Instead of waking up inside a freezing vehicle and figuring out how to survive another winter day, Franco was waking up in a warm apartment of his own.
He had a home again.
Renaissance Box is located next to Wacouta Commons Park in Saint Paul’s Lowertown neighborhood. Over time, Franco began to find more than housing there. He found community.
With encouragement from Chanika, an Aeon staff member, Franco started becoming involved around the property and neighborhood. What began with helping with landscaping grew into a much larger commitment to Wacouta Commons Park.
Franco began spending hours caring for the park, often accompanied by his dog, Beaux.
He picked up litter, watered plants, tended gardens, cared for flower beds and helped keep the park welcoming for neighbors and visitors. Beaux became a familiar presence too, accompanying Franco as he worked and keeping watch over the park.
That commitment became extraordinary. The Saint Paul Parks Conservancy later recognized Franco as the volunteer associated with Wacouta Commons Park, noting that he contributed 585 hours in a single year. The Conservancy described him planting and transplanting flowers, dividing perennials, watering trees and hanging baskets, pruning roses, spreading mulch and tending to the park’s paths and grounds, usually with Beaux nearby.
Franco’s work transformed the park, but the park and the community around it also became an important part of his life.
Beaux became well known among people who used Wacouta Commons. The Saint Paul Parks Conservancy even described the St. Bernard as a park hero, remembering how Beaux would guard the park while Franco gardened in the evenings and greet people who came through.
After experiencing homelessness and profound loss, Franco had built a new routine around his home, his neighbors and a place where he could contribute every day.
Then his life changed again.
Franco was diagnosed with cancer.
At one point, he was told he might have only six months to live.
It was devastating news, but Franco kept going. The home and community he had built gave him stability through another period of enormous uncertainty. He had people around him, a place where he belonged and reasons to continue looking forward.
Franco ultimately defied that prognosis.
Today, his cancer is in complete remission.
Looking back on everything he has experienced, from losing his husband and becoming homeless, to finding an apartment at Renaissance Box, becoming a caretaker of his neighborhood park and surviving cancer, Franco sees having a home as a crucial part of what allowed him to rebuild his life.
Housing gave him more than a roof.
It gave him stability. It connected him to people. It allowed him to become part of a community and to give something back to the place that had become his home.
And after everything Franco has endured, that sense of home gave him something worth fighting for.
