The year was 1994 and Point Richmond resident Shaun Carr was working in Hollywood, a dream job creating special effects and building props for movies. Born in Manchester, England, he lived in Huntington Beach and spent his free time skateboarding and surfing.
But one morning Carr woke up with a crushing pressure on his chest and was unable to get up. He spent the next two days crying. Although he didn’t know it at the time, he was suffering from post traumatic stress disorder, the result of his military service in the Falklands War, a short-lived 1982 conflict between England and Argentina over the Falkland Islands.
Although the war lasted only six weeks, more than 250 British soldiers were killed. Carr was working as a diver aboard the H.M.S. Glamorgan, when the ship was attacked. Fourteen sailors died, including Carr’s best friend, and many more were injured. Carr left the Royal Navy in 1986, traveled the world for a couple of years and settled in the United States in 1989.
Meet Your Neighbor: War veteran Shaun Carr
Who: Shaun Carr, organizer of an annual backpack drive to help unhoused people
Neighborhood: Point Richmond
Richmond resident for: Seven years
He said: “The holidays are especially hard because everyone is shopping and everything is bright and it just makes the sadness deeper.”
Want to help? You can message Carr on Instagram @Valhella77 or donate through Venmo to “Sion Karr.”
He tried not to think about what he had lived through. But his emotions came flooding back, leaving him unable to do even the simplest tasks. He stopped working and eventually became homeless, sleeping on the beach, at friends’ houses or in his car. “I put some stuff in storage, but mostly just left everything behind,” Carr said. People would pass him by, mostly avoiding eye contact, making Carr feel even more forlorn. “When you’re out on the street, you feel invisible,” he said.
Carr spent a year like that, eventually making his way to San Francisco, then Albany before settling in Richmond in 2018. He got a job at Geo. M. Martin, a machine shop in Emeryville, a commute that took him past the encampments off Interstate 580 in Berkeley each day. It brought back his own time on the streets. The desolation. The cold and hunger. The feeling like no one cared. He began wondering what he could do to help.
Nursing a drink at a friend’s bar, Carr decided that he would distribute backpacks with essentials like socks, beanies, toothbrushes, snacks, water and other similar items to the unhoused. The first drive to collect supplies was held in December of 2019 and they distributed about 150 backpacks. Since then, Carr’s project has grown to involve more than a dozen volunteers who purchase supplies and fill more than 500 backpacks each Christmas.
“The holidays are especially hard because everyone is shopping and everything is bright and it just makes the sadness deeper,” Carr said.
Richmond fire department joins volunteer backpack effort in 2019
After Carr met Richmond Fire Department Battalion Chief Victor Bon Tempo in 2019, they collaborated to deliver the donations using the city’s fire trucks. The fire department already knows many of the people living in encampments but delivering essential supplies gave them a new way to interact with people, said Bon Tempo.
“It creates a spectacle and turns people’s heads,” he said. “And it’s a lot different than other Christmas events I’ve been involved in that usually center around toys or food. This is completely grassroots … It’s just humans helping other humans.”
During a holiday distribution in 2022, Carr met an unhoused man from Bulgaria. They got to talking and eventually Carr was able to track down the man’s family in Germany. Several months later, the man’s sister flew to California to pick up her brother.
“You never know who you’re talking to on the street,” he said.
When Carr is not working, he does airbrush art — often exploring themes of war — and uses scraps of metal from the machine shop where he works. He collects skateboards, a nod to his skater days in Southern California, and spends a lot of time at Mom & Pop art shop in Point Richmond, his go-to for art supplies. “I love Point Richmond because it’s like a little village,” he said. “It’s the Bay Area’s best-kept secret.”
Mom & Pop art shop owner Kelly Nicolaisen Castillo met Carr five years ago and eventually began collecting supplies for his backpack giveaway at her store. Now, whenever an unhoused person comes through asking for help, Nicolaisen Castillo dials her friend.
“I think everyone needs some way to give back and this is his way,” she said. “He is a people person and just really wants to help. Plus he’s super witty.”
Over the years, Carr’s trauma made it difficult for him to get close to anyone and kept him running, both common characteristics of post traumatic stress disorder. Now, he says he’s closer than ever to feeling at peace.
“Doing this project helps me realize that we’re the gears of something bigger. That it’s not only about us, but about being part of a bigger consciousness.”
