With a Ph.D. in organic chemistry from Stanford University, Dr. Robert Gooden knows that intelligence, or even poor life choices, sometimes have little to do with the reason for homelessness.

“This was a stabilizing place in my life after things had become chaotic and depressing,” he said of the Shreveport-Bossier Rescue Mission, following the loss of a job and a diagnosis of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

Without personal transportation, it was important for Dr. Gooden to be able to get around, for cancer treatments at LSU Medical Center, to the Social Security Office, and to the Job Corp office. Through partnership with United Way, bus passes on public transportation helped him get around town to job interviews and other important appointments. Reliable transportation was essential not only to being able to secure work, but to keep a job once he found employment.

With help from the Rescue Mission, he now has two jobs -- teaching part-time at Southern University in Shreveport and conducting training classes at Job Corp.

After nine months, Dr. Gooden moved out of the Rescue Mission. His cancer is in total remission, and his future has a positive prognosis as well. Through the Shreveport-Bossier Rescue Mission, a well-trained research chemist has resumed his productive place in society.


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