40 Prado’s kitchen doesn’t just serve daily meals, it changes lives. 

Take Tyson Wynne’s transformation as proof. 

This is a cross-published piece with Mustang News, more information can be found here.

About a year ago, Tyson Wynne left Los Angeles’ Skid Row and boarded a train headed north with little more than his ticket. He said he had been living in the alleys of Hollywood, consumed by drugs and alcohol, with no support system to sustain him. He stumbled off at the last stop — San Luis Obispo.

Soon, Wynne found himself in line for a hot meal outside 40 Prado Homeless Services Center, where the non-profit People’s Kitchen of San Luis Obispo has served lunches year-round since 1984. 

Wynne, 53, has been volunteering on the other side of the food line for the past year, helping prepare and serve meals every day to people around town. Now, he’s set to become an official employee. 

“A decent meal is what really changed me coming here,” he said. 

40 Prado collaborates with local service providers to deliver daily meals and temporary housing for homeless individuals. The facility offers access to restrooms, laundry, mail services and primary medical care. Demand has increased significantly. 

Mary Parker, president of People’s Kitchen, noted that the center now serves approximately 100 individuals daily. 

Working as an apprentice under 40 Prado’s kitchen supervisor, Kevin Hyland, Wynne said he has adopted healthy habits and remains dedicated. 

On his breaks, he works through his high school diploma course, having dropped out of school at an early age. Learning now excites him. Volunteering long hours for seven days a week is the routine that has become his salvation.

“He has turned his life completely around,” Hyland said of Wynne. “I can’t get him to leave. He’s like, ‘No, I want to be here, this is a positive environment.’”

Some programs 40 Prado offers include Safe Parking, which grants free overnight parking to anyone who needs it, including those living in their RVs outside 40 Prado’s facility. There are children’s, youth and family programs, as well as resources for seniors and veterans. 

San Luis Obispo County’s Point-in-Time Count conducted in January 2024 found 1,175 individuals experiencing homelessness, a 19% reduction from 2022.  However, the number of people seeking homelessness resources has visibly increased for 40 Prado and People’s Kitchen staff. 

In 2023, 40 Prado saw the highest number of participants seeking services, according to statistics from Friends of 40 Prado, a nonprofit created to financially support the facility’s work.

The homelessness services center adopted a new 90-day model this year, limiting stays and placing a greater emphasis on connection to housing and individualized plans for each participant. 

Wynne said he received free meals and a bed to sleep in each night while he needed it, and 40 Prado remained supportive through his process of sobriety at Sun Street’s drug and rehab 90-day program next door. The center also helped him obtain a birth certificate for free, reinstate his ID and get his first pair of hearing aids. 

Wynne recounts the day he asked the front desk staff for a bus pass to pick up his new items. Not only did he say they instantly showed interest in helping him, but they also drove him there.

“If they are going to care about you, why don’t I care about myself?” Wynne said, which is a sentiment he adopted as he connected more with the supportive network of individuals around 40 Prado.

Wynne’s upbringing

Wynne was born on Hearst Ranch in San Simeon, Calif., and at 6 years old, moved to the Salinas Valley after his father passed away. Growing up, he lived with his mother and grandmother, recounting happy memories from early Christmas and Easter holidays as a boy. 

His grandfather, Charles McGraw, was a famous stage and film actor in ‘40s and ‘50s film noir classics like “The Killer” and “The Narrow Margin.” In his late teenage years, Wynne set off for Los Angeles to follow in McGraw’s footsteps. 

However, grappling with years of sexual abuse by an elementary school teacher and the lifetime of trauma that ensued, Wynne fell into drugs and alcohol. He soon found himself living on the streets, blocks from his grandfather’s star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame.  

Starting at Sun Street 

“Part of the reason I decided to go next door to Sun Street was because it was nice to be around 40 Prado,” Wynne said. “It was nice for them to see the real me and I didn’t like them seeing the bad me.” 

Having been on the streets for years and formerly incarcerated, Wynne said he was all too familiar with feeling invisible or missed by no one. But when he left 40 Prado for three days, as Hyland remembers and recounted, everyone missed him. Wynne said this recognition of his humanity was life-changing. 

During that time, Hyland ushered him into his kitchen to volunteer as the pilot for a new kitchen apprenticeship program. 

“He was always working and always busy and I saw something in him,” Hyland said.

Hyland recognized the value of volunteerism and quickly sought out interested individuals staying at 40 Prado who have recently experienced homelessness or battled drug abuse, like Wynne. Through the apprenticeship program, he’s learned job skills and built a resume while fostering a space where he could begin re-engaging with the community. 

“Now, he’s a social butterfly,” Hyland said with a smile, having seen Wynne through his ups and downs.

Wynne’s growth mindset throughout his process of sobriety has made an impact on other unhoused individuals currently residing in one of the 130 beds offered at 40 Prado, Hyland said. 

Some have attempted to get clean or volunteer their time in the kitchen. One woman, Wynne said, approached him excitedly as he arrived at work a specific morning, proudly shaking her Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) booklet above her head to share her success in the program. 

“They’ve seen the progression and he’s inspired a lot of other people who are like, ‘Well, we want to do that,’” Hyland said.  

Before returning to the kitchen to prepare the day’s dinner, Wynne reflected on his difficult but rewarding experience, having turned his life around with determination and acceptance of outside support. 

“I could stay in bed all day if I wanted to. But no, I like coming out, and I’ve learned to enjoy life,” he said with poise and self-assurance. “You start learning to love yourself, to love life and that you can love someone else.”

Wynne said Hyland has become a mentor figure to him and has provided unwavering support since he came to 40 Prado. Four days before graduating from the Sun Street program, Hyland said Wynne had walked out, silenced his phone and disappeared until he got back in contact with him hours later. It was in these moments of uncertainty that Hyland called a meeting with 40 Prado manager Cecil Hale, as well as 40 Prado’s housing navigator and alcohol recovery program superintendent. 

While the waiting list to get a bed that day was over 350 individuals long, Hale ensured Wynne would have a space to sleep, while the housing navigator worked over the next three weeks to secure housing for him. 

As a team, 40 Prado staff members recognized an opportunity for success and a story of change. 

Now, Wynne is comfortably settled into a house near downtown that the non-profit Community Action Partnership of San Luis Obispo (CAPSLO) connected him with. 

After working hours in the kitchen preparing for dinner service one day, Wynne pulled out his new iPhone during his break, his hands swiping through pictures of his living space.

“I have my own room,” Wynne said proudly, sharing pictures of his clothes hanging neatly in his closet and the vibrant hues of a new mood light he recently installed that casts soft colors onto the fireplace in the living room. 

Also proudly displayed on his iPhone was an old photograph of him on the streets of Skid Row in Los Angeles.

A fellow homeless man snapped a photograph of Wynne during COVID-19. His battered, worn-out demeanor was exhibited in his powerful stare at the camera’s lens. He weighed 40 lbs less when the photograph was taken. Now, having been welcomed into the myriad of services at 40 Prado and sticking to a daily workout routine after work, Wynne said he feels in much better health. 

“It’s been great because you never know where recovery is going to take you,” Wynne said. “But Prado has a lot of resources here to help people, and it’s nice to see a bunch of nice, clean people. Happy people.”