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UCLA employee inspires positivity in students after battling addiction

Damone Brown, a worker at Il Tramezzino at the Anderson School of Management, said he is dedicated to rebuilding his life after spending three years in shelters on Skid Row. (Alejandra Reyes/Daily Bruin senior staff)

By Jorge Valero

Sept. 18, 2015 9:00 p.m.

In 2011, Damone Brown thought he had it all – an apartment of his own and a well-paying social service job that allowed him to help the homeless. Within a year, he became homeless himself, unemployed and dependent on drugs.

After years of battling addiction and homelessness, Brown began to rebuild his life by working at Il Tramezzino, an Italian cafe located in the Anderson School of Management that specializes in panini sandwiches.

Brown routinely offers fist bumps and shares jokes with Il Tramezzino customers. When business slows, he greets customers at their tables, smiles broadly and engages other employees in dance-offs.

Michelle Fang, a law student, visits Il Tramezzino almost every morning before class.

“He always greets me like an old friend he’s known for a long time,” Fang said. “He’s like a ray of sunshine in my morning, and I’m not a morning person.”

In April, Brown said he was glad to see a student walk into Il Tramezzino wearing a Black Lives Matter shirt, because he thinks students of color should work together to advocate for one another.

“I told her how awesome it was to see her wearing it, and told her how much I wanted one,” Brown said.

A week later, the student returned with an identical shirt for him. Brown said he was touched by the student’s gesture, and now wears the shirt as often as possible.

Before working at Il Tramezzino, Brown spent more than six years helping connect homeless people with housing and employment assistance when he worked with Volunteers of America and The Salvation Army on Skid Row.

Though he did not complete his degree, he studied drug and alcohol counseling at Los Angeles City College, which helped him find social service work as a case manager.

“Nine times out of 10, the people you try to help are not necessarily grateful for your service,” he said. Seeing the effects of addiction, prostitution and spousal abuse on an almost daily basis was difficult, and I needed a thick skin to deal with it.”

Having used drugs for years, Brown became increasingly dependent on cocaine and alcohol by 2009, blowing most of his salary to feed his addiction. He said he would often call in sick to work two or three times a week to stay home after a weekend of nonstop partying.

“Sometimes I was literally getting high at work, oblivious to whether people noticed,” he said.

Brown was homeless for the next three years, living in shelters on Skid Row. After spending months in rehabilitation, Brown said he is now dedicated to rebuilding his life.

Devon Jackson-Kali, the owner of Il Tramezzino and Brown’s cousin, convinced Brown to work for him last December.

“I felt like he needed an opportunity,” Jackson-Kali said. “I knew the restaurant would be a good place for him to rebuild his life and to use his talent for cheering people up.”

Soof Hacohen, one of Brown’s coworkers, said Brown is important to the atmosphere at Il Tramezzino, where employees consider each other family.

Brown said he wants to go back to school and focus on social work with troubled youth.

“Society has given up on these young people, and I want to try to be their big brother and change the course of their life,” he said.

Brown added he wants to continue helping others because he doesn’t think he was enough of a father to his own son, who was born when Brown was 17. He said he has been absent from much of his 22-year-old son’s life.

“I see pictures of him on Facebook, and I’m not there,” he said. “It doesn’t seem like he minds, because he doesn’t know me, and that’s my fault.”

Brown said he moved back into a place of his own only three weeks ago, and he cried when he realized how long it took him to get there.

“I know I’m not necessarily going to change anybody’s life here, but while you’re in my presence, I’d like to think I somehow made your day a little better and put a smile on your face,” Brown said.

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Jorge Valero | News contributor
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