-When I first came downtown
and I had to stand in line for the first time to get food,
that was really traumatic for me,
because in one ear,
I have the devil saying,
"Oh, you're this famous artist.
You've been around the world with everybody,
and you're standing in line with homeless people,
with drug addicts, with this, with that, or whatever."
And then in this ear,
I have the voice of an angel saying, "It's okay.
You're no better than anybody else.
You're no bigger than your last curtain call."
I ro-o-o-o-o-a-a-a-a-ar.
And I know
he watches
o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-ver
me-e-e-e-e-e.
Hallelujah.
-Hallelujah.
-My name is Rikki Valentino Lafontaine.
You might see me as homeless,
but I'm a classically trained singer,
and one day, you're gonna know who I am.
I am the son of a baptist preacher,
and my mother still sings today in church.
My mother actually got me into music.
On Sunday mornings, you know,
she would turn this opera stuff on,
and I would sing the high notes with the sopranos and everything
probably around the time I was like 3 or 4,
and that's how I really started singing.
Nessun dorma.
Ma il mio mistero chiuso in me.
Il nome mio nessun sapra.
No, no.
I went off to college,
and I majored in voice at Prairie View A&M University.
There, I studied German, French, Italian,
so I was singing opera.
Once I graduated, I went to Washington, D.C.,
where I met one of the world's famous
Grammy Award-winning gospel singers,
Richard Smallwood,
and I became one of the Richard Smallwood singers,
and we toured the world, traveled to Europe,
and I recorded a song called "I Give You Praise"
back in 1990.
We recorded that album in the Bahamas.
After I left Richard Smallwood,
I started singing background for Enrique Iglesias,
and then after 9/11 happened in New York,
we lost our gig.
So after that, I ended up living off my savings
for probably about three years.
My unemployment ran out two years ago.
I ended up having to put my things in storage,
and I slept in a car for probably about seven months --
and I know my mom, if she ever sees this,
she's gonna be upset, 'cause I never told her this --
but yeah.
So, anyway, um...
-You never? -Never told my mother, no.
Still to this day, she doesn't know.
A lot of people --
They're where they are because they want to be.
I would say probably 75% of them.
There may be 10% who have mental illnesses
and who can't get out of where they are.
And then there are those like me
who just circumstance, situations
caused us to be in the situation that we were in.
Last year, I sung for the National Homeless Memorial
at the James Wood Center,
and the CEO of SRO was there.
So they started booking me for different things,
and everybody just embraced me and asked me,
"Do you need anything?"
You know, "How can we help you?"
So they got me my permanent housing back in February,
and that's where I live now.
I'm gonna give you a scenario
to let you know how my mind-set changed.
One of my big brothers just passed away two weeks ago,
and I went home to Texas.
When you're down here on skid row, everyplace you go,
you can get food,
you can get water, people give you stuff,
and you try to get all the things
that you can get like you're not gonna eat ever again.
So when I went home, I was staying at my mom's house,
who's a great cook, and there was food everywhere,
and I'm just trying to eat as much food as I can,
and my mother looked at me.
She was, you know, "Why are you eating so much food?
I mean, are you okay?
I mean, have you been eating?" or whatever.
I said, "Oh, I'm fine.
It's just so good, I don't want anybody else
to eat all of it," or whatever.
But in the back of my mind,
I still had that mind-set of,
"Let me get as much food as I can and as much water and stuff
and pack up stuff and take it to my room
so nobody else will have it."
So I had to get out of that, you know.
So if you stay focused, you can get out of it.
I wish that the world
could see beyond people sleeping on the streets,
not look at people who are homeless as trash,
and see the people, "Well, hey, that's someone's son,
daughter, mother, father."
Sometimes you'll huddle in a corner with a blanket,
but you still have what's inside of you,
and I had a foundation,
and I'm able to encourage other people,
you know, who are homeless and just let them know,
"It doesn't have to be like this."
The hardest part about being homeless
is accepting the fact that,
in the past, you were somebody,
and now you feel like you're nobody and nobody cares.
But if you had the time to ask me my name
and you went and Googled my name,
you'll be like, "Oh, my God.
I just passed him.
I didn't say anything.
I walked past him like he was nothing,"
and that happens a lot.
You raise my up
so I can stand on mountains.
You raise me up
to walk on stormy sea.
I am strong
when I am on your shoulder.
You raise me up to more than I can be-e-e-e-e-e.
Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
You raise me u-u-u-up.
So kind of like that. Even though --
-I've got the chills, man. -Yeah.
Even though -- Yeah.
-Right? -Yeah.
-Oh, my God.
-[ Laughs ]