I plan to take on projects that aid the community by preserving the history and traditions of the trades, while restoring what is being lost to the ravages of time. By aiding home and building owners by creating a dedicated network of trades, crafts, artisans, business, civic leaders and all who wish to help. Also, by teaching all who wish to learn these crafts and trades in the field and in the classroom.

When I was 15, I found myself suffering homelessness, the only thing I had was my love of carpentry and a twilight program through Western Institute of Technology that taught the trades. Except if they knew I was homeless I could never have attended. Luckily, I could get a work permit and work as an apprentice, I worked as an apprentice in the field in Baltimore for 5 years. So, I would have a safe place to stay, I joined The Guardian Angels. My apprenticeship was over and with other life altering factors; I decided to leave Baltimore. It was Dec. 1992, and I knew it would be plenty of work in LA. I had $400.00, it was enough for a bus ticket that would get me as far as Riverside and a little food. When I got to Riverside there were basic resources to help maintain a person who is suffering homelessness.

The shelter on 3rd street was, first come, first serve by 6pm to get a spot/bed, so instead I used to sleep behind the Universalist Unitarian Church of Riverside on Mission Inn Blvd. and Lemon St., between the church and the annex building, it was safer. I used to talk about carpentry and working on old houses with someone that was involved with the Universalist Unitarian Church of Riverside and set on the restoration board. It was the beginning of January 1993; I remember because later that month the grandmother that my uncle and I built the wheelchair ramp for (the one that started me on my carpentry journey), died.

I did not survive well in Riverside. He told me that there were programs in downtown LA (Skid Row) that might be able to help. He gave me $20.00 and told me, go down there. Skid Row, at that time was like North Ave and Pennsylvania Ave in Baltimore where I was born; but warm year-round. Yes, I found programs that were structured well but something always fell short, if you just worked just one, but you could only work just one at a time according to the funding rules and regulations. Then the times are convenient for the program providers was my interpretation. It took 3 months to find and schedule the 4 programs I needed to get off skid row.

Education, Training, Therapy & Access to Resources
September 1993, I got my first apartment. 6 months later I find myself crawling around partially collapsed apartment buildings installing screw jacks for R. E. Lee DC. after the January 1994 North Ridge earthquake.
On two other occasions in my life, I found myself suffering from homelessness (YES! A disease that needs to be cured).

1. At the beginning of 2000 my father died in January and my second child, a son was born in March. I was trying to buy my first house and open a small construction business in Moreno Valley. Except the person that was selling the house did not own it and the FBI soon showed up at the door. The mother of my 3 children took the kids to live with her family and because there was no room at her family’s house I could not stay. I went back to Baltimore and rebuilt and later, sent for her and the children.

2. I lost my handyman service in 2007 just before the 2008 housing crisis, so I was helping a friend save his business in Monticello Illinois, when the mother of my 3 children had a heart attack in 2009. I tried to hold on, with illness, bills, 3 children under 13 and a souring friendship the led to my family being evicted in January 2011. She and the children had to move back to California to stay with her family. I stayed behind to finish off jobs I had started and to pay debts, I followed in March. I did not get along with her family, so I slept on the street. I saw my kids all the time and by April had a motel room and was working for the contractor that was building the Double Tree Hotel in Anaheim. The mother of my 3 children & my best friend moved to Riverside to stay with her mother. When she moved in with her mother, she made me make her a promise and she held me to it. “That after the heart attack and all has happened, I would never be no more than an hour away from when the kids needed me”. So, In December 2011, I followed them to Riverside. The city where I first arrived in California.

The mother of my 3 children & my best friend died January 2014
I was staying at Hullen Place Homeless Shelter, close to 3rd & Chicago. I was working to find work and get a place. I found a job; with that job I got a motel room (to make room for the next person). With that motel room and the help from the tradesman who gave me the job I got an apartment on 5th St. & Lemon Street. in downtown Riverside. Just 2 blocks from the Universalist Unitarian Church of Riverside. In keeping with a promise, I made the mother of my 3 children, I received my C-6 Contractor’s license in December 2019 and after renting space, buying equipment paying all the fees. I opened Jordan’s Custom Woodwork. Launch date January 1, 2020. Then January 2020 lock down COVID. Got through that and still I became a General Contractor. Then it happened. The Once Every 1000 years; the 2023 atmospheric river. From January to May. Jordan’s Custom Woodwork, succumb; like so many other businesses, I had to shut it completely down and file chapter 7 bankruptcy.
One thing that I learned over the many years, and courses of my life is: A good maintainable foundation is the key. Even if all you have is a cardboard box to start, maintain it keep and use it as a jumping off point and or a fallback point. This will help you not be afraid to take small risks, just remember each mistake you made, and how you made them. Write them down if you must. Lookout for the warning signs for the first month and a half. Like I tell my now 6 children. Please make mistakes; but own them; and learn from them; for with every mistake comes a lesson. The mistake I was making was and from listening to others is only seeing the mistake and ignoring the accompanying lesson.
I still live just blocks away from the Universalist Unitarian Church of Riverside. And, in the churches annex building is now housed, on the second floor in the rear;

The offices of
Artisan Historic Restoration
3657 Lemon St. 2flR.

To try to do my part, I developed a 5-month path out of homelessness program. I have developed the program to work for our youths, those newly released from incarceration, and our returning veterans. And ANYONE WHO NEED IT!
I plan to open Shalters & trade schools and teach all who wish to learn all across the country.

Remembering the Forgotten
G. Ellsworth Jordan (Founder)

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