Johnny Carriere leaves his Opelousas home each Monday morning at 7:30 a.m. to make it to his first class.
 
Most students would not attempt the lengthy commute, but Carriere knows the destination is worth the journey.
 
After years of struggling with drug addiction and abandoning his education twice, Carriere, construction management senior, finally found the road to redemption that led him to directing a homeless shelter.
 
Carriere began his education at the University in fall 2000. Like most first-year students, he enjoyed the perks of being away at college — the friendships, the fun and the freedom.
 
But the lax atmosphere soon led Carriere in the wrong direction.
 
“I got [to LSU], and everything was great for three semesters,” he said. “But after the third semester, I started doing drugs and had a party lifestyle.”
 
Carriere began selling prescription pain pills, which eventually got him hooked.
 
“I was addicted to Xanax, cocaine and marijuana,” he said. “Dealing shifted to me becoming an addict, and soon I was selling just to get high.”
 
Addiction consumed Carriere by the end of his sophomore year, and he stopped going to class. He moved back to his hometown of Opelousas in an attempt to get clean.
 
“I was clean for five or six months, but I was miserable,” he said. “I still wanted to use but knew I couldn’t.”
 
Carriere returned to the University with a new attitude in 2004, but history repeated itself. After two semesters, he flunked out.
 
“It got to [a] point where the place I was staying at on Government Street didn’t have electricity or gas,” he explained. “I can remember being at my house crying out in pain, hurting.”
 
Two weeks later, Carriere enrolled at a rehabilitation center in Mississippi, from which he graduated in 2007, and has been clean for more than three years.
 
Determined to make a better life for himself, Carriere began volunteering in his community by tutoring children and working at the local homeless shelter.
 
Little did he know, this shelter — the Opelousas Lighthouse Mission — would become his career.
OLM is a non-profit organization and 23-bed housing facility that provides emergency and transitional shelter for men.
 
Being the center’s director for the last two years has been more than a job to Carriere, and nothing can keep him away — not even his education, which is 62 miles away.
 
“The last four semesters I have commuted because I have so much invested and tied up in the work that I do,” he said.
 
Carriere said the mission strives to help the men become self-sufficient. He commended the work ethic of the residents and the respect they show him.
 
“There are some as young as 18 and some as old as 80,” he said. “All from different backgrounds and different paths of life — it’s like a big gumbo.”
 
Clifton “Pops” Bedney is one of the 22 men at the shelter. The 71-year-old Hurricane Katrina evacuee has been at the shelter for about one year and has developed a friendship with Carriere.
 
“He’s my ace in the hole, there,” he joked. “He is a sweet boy, and I admire Johnny to the highest.”
Carriere said the affection is mutual.
 
“You think you’re doing this work and you’re going to help these guys out, and yeah, you do help them, but the most rewarding thing is that it comes back — they are actually helping me out,” Carriere said.
 
“They changed what I originally thought about homelessness and taught me how to love.”
 
Carriere said he uses his past to relate to the men and as a testimony of hope.
 
“I see guys that struggle, come to me broken, and now they have purpose,” he said. “I get to see the transformation in their life, just like I got to experience it in my life.”
 
Carriere will graduate this year with a degree in construction management, but he plans to continue working at OLM for as long as he can.
 
“It’s been amazing how my life has been restored,” he said, smiling. “This has given me so much more than I ever lost.”
 
 
 
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Contact Sydni Dunn at [email protected]