At the Village Family Services drop-in center, Ruben Figueroa worked as a case manager who organized art workshops and connect unhoused youth with services and a place to live.
Figueroa barely made enough to support himself after going separate ways with his family who became homeless for the second time. When he wasn’t facilitating workshops or setting up those in need with housing, he would catch up on sleep in his very office in North Hollywood.
Village Family Services is a non-profit organization that supports unhoused individuals from the ages of 18 to 24, connecting them with immediate housing and medical services, and providing free food, showers, laundry machines and different workshops like nutrition and fitness, financial literacy and therapy available for anyone interested.
In addition to working on housing cases, Figueroa hosted art workshops for those waiting long hours for an open shower or laundry slot, or for an appointment with a housing manager. While some believed they were already up against enough challenges, of finding a place to sleep at night, others believed art to serve as a tool of expression and an outlet for their problems.
As an artist himself, whose stagename is Ruben the Roach, created a workshop as a time to work on his projects – like an art installation and outfit that was an extension of the piece – that would be displayed at an art show later that night.
One of his last-minute outfit creations consisted of a white and blue button-up t-shirt and his friend’s heat press machine. Just before he walked the show, he hurried over to his friend’s place and printed ‘Ruben The’ with an image of a black cockroach beneath it.
After his shifts ended on Friday nights, Figueroa would race to use the center’s showers and dress himself for the shows. When he wasn’t creating with a showcase in mind, he would paint as a way to ground himself as he too was facing homelessness for the second time. At 24 years old, he was helping the unhoused youth who were unaware that he too was unsure of where he’d be sleeping that night.
“I was living so many different lives,” Figueroa said.
Figueroa struggled from an early age. His earliest memories stem from when he and his family lived in a Huntington Park back garage where he experienced freezing winter nights and hot summer days as they didn’t have AC or a heater.
With limited money, Figueroa and his two siblings had to find ways to entertain themselves with the items laying around their space.
“We have grown in poverty so he knows how to improvise, he knows how to work with what he has,” said his mother, Cladure.
He’d gather the different pens and pencils from around the house and begin drawing, taking after his father who would “always draw” and his mother who had an interest in calligraphy. His parents’ failure to nurture their talents is what pushed Figueroa to pursue art as he got older, from painting to photography – fashion design to modeling.
Outside of his love of creating, he finds art to be a tool for self-expression, communication, and a way to hold onto his cherished memories. He carries a large hardshell briefcase that’s overflowing with glimpses of the past. There are sketches of faces and bodies, cooking recipes for tamales and pozole, notes-to-self – some that read: ‘Name what I feel’, ‘Refer to the behavior not the person’ and ‘Fear none but God’ – and strips of film, some with images of his parents before they had children and from when he was unhoused.
“Art kind of makes me feel safe because it’s like time-stamping in a way…it gives me a sense of security,” said Figueroa. “It’s nice to just hold onto a moment.”
When Figueroa was 9 years old, his family had been evicted from their home after his dad quit his job and lost his final paycheck and his mom’s check from financial aid got lost in the mail. From 2008 to 2010, their family bounced around from different hotels and shelters in cities like Monterey Park, Pasadena, South Gate and Koreatown.
His family finally found a place to live, only to be evicted a second time from their home in the Valley. They stayed at his mother’s friend’s studio in Santee Alley, Downtown, for a short while.
But with the children growing older and bigger, it became harder to find a place where they could all live together. Figueroa’s brothers moved to Burbank and Hollywood, his parents floated between the Valley and L.A., as did he, as he tried to maintain a base for his work as a case manager.
Working as a case manager for the unhoused set Figueroa up for a moment of irony: While he could connect his two brothers with housing, his agency’s conflict-of-interest rules couldn’t do the same for him. Despite not finding housing for himself, he was more than grateful to do it for his brothers.
“He’s never been selfish, he’s always been giving,” said Alexis, Figueroa’s younger brother. “Even when we were younger and there were times our family couldn’t afford money for sweaters, he would go to a lost and found and get sweaters for us.”
Figueroa faced a dilemma of sleeping on the street to keep his job, or quitting it to receive service. After staying with a friend he met at an art show for some time, he moved into a separate homeless shelter in order to maintain his outreach job and his source of income.
Till this day, Figueroa prides himself at his job as he’s experienced homelessness two different times since he was a child and knew how to navigate the system. He also enjoyed providing an outlet for creativity since he believes it to be a strong form of alleviating feelings of instability and fear.
“It can help you stop thinking about everything else,” Figueroa said. “For that moment you just focus on blending the colors.”
Figueroa left his job after almost two years in 2024, disappointed by a system too broken for him to participate in. But he left the work with a new perspective of life.
Figueroa, now 27, has reunited with his family at their new home in the Valley and continues to make art that challenges expectations. As someone who hates feeling “boxed in,” he creates art that communicates his story and speaks to his soul than art that pleases the majority.
His one painting, of a mouse at the front and center of a stage, framed by red theater curtains, represents his belief that humans are trapped in a “rat-race” performing for those in power. And another of numerous photos taken of his friends, and some strangers, cut-out and put together in a collage.
Cladure Figueroa has noticed her boy’s artistic eye since he was two – from breaking apart toys to “figure it out” to drawing a detailed portrait of her that depicted each of her humps and curves.
Today, her son continues to inspire her, leaving her not sure “what to expect” from his days out in the city, or quick trips to the Dollar store. Not long ago, he constructed a custom outfit, made of nothing but clothing pins. On their way back home, Cladure did him a favor by making a quick stop at a Dollar Store and came out with a pack of clothing pins in hand.
“I’m thinking that maybe he’s buying the pins because something’s ripped but next thing you know I see a whole outfit,” she said. “He’s very spontaneous.”
Figueroa’s growing hunger for creating is what makes him a one-of-a-kind artist today. Art not only puts his words into visual play, but has, and continues to, liberate him from the cycle of poverty that can dry creativity clean.
Raised in an environment that was often met with challenges, Figueroa could have slipped into a lifestyle that forced him down a bad path and suppressed his bright personality.
“It’s awesome to see my brother do things and not just be tied to our childhood,” Alexis said. “We didn’t grow up in the best situation…he could’ve very easily fallen into stuff that he shouldn’t have been in, but he chose to go artistic.”
Figueroa’s passion for art strengthened alongside his skin after experiencing years of poverty and homelessness. Despite the days he was unsure of where to sleep or shower, art has reassured him of his purpose. Whether housed, unhoused or crashing with a friend, his creative light never dims. His art can be found on his back as part of his custom outfit. It can be painted over an old thrifted canvas. He can be dancing it, modeling it even. No matter the medium, his art follows in his footsteps from Los Angeles to the Valley.
