Mark’s Story • Toms River, New Jersey
Mark Mossop Jr. knew what it meant to want change and still be left outside. His story helped shape the conviction behind Soles Saving Souls: practical help matters - but a real opportunity can change the direction of a life.
Public record: NJ Spotlight News documented Mark speaking publicly in Toms River about homelessness, sleeping outside the Ocean County Library, and the help provided by Christ Episcopal Church.
The Beginning
Mark describes a childhood shaped by instability long before homelessness entered his adult life. He says his mother abandoned him when he was young. His father struggled with alcoholism and drug dealing in Florida, and Mark says he was pulled into selling drugs as a child to help support the household. He also describes surviving sexual abuse, periods of incarceration, addiction, and the suicide of his father. Stability was never something he learned to take for granted.
As an adult, Mark became a father. He says his daughter became one of the strongest reasons he wanted a different life. But the home around him was still unstable. Mark says his daughter’s mother was struggling with drug use and that arguments in the home were becoming more serious.
Mark says he made a decision that would change the next several years of his life. Rather than keep fighting in front of his daughter or risk a confrontation that could bring police and violence into the home, he left.
According to Mark, his daughter’s mother later obtained a restraining order against him. When he turned to social services for help with housing, Mark says he was told that because he had chosen to leave the home, he had made himself homeless. He says he was told that if he had stayed until a formal eviction, assistance might have been available.
To Mark, the message was impossible to understand. He believed leaving was the responsible choice because he did not want his daughter watching adults fight or police being called to the home. Yet that same decision, he says, was treated as the reason he did not qualify for immediate housing help.
What followed was years of survival. Mark worked when he could, including jobs along the boardwalk. When he had enough money, he paid for motel rooms. When the money ran short, he slept outside. The Ocean County Library in Toms River became one of the places where he tried to make it through the night.
The Decision That Led Outside
Mark says the hardest part of becoming homeless was knowing that the decision that put him outside was, in his mind, the decision meant to protect his daughter.
He says he did not want her growing up watching addiction, screaming matches, police responses or physical confrontation. So he walked away from the house instead of waiting for the situation to collapse around her.
When he later asked social services for help, Mark says the response was that he had voluntarily left and therefore made himself homeless. He recalls being told that remaining in the home until eviction would have created a different eligibility path.
For Mark, that became one of the most painful contradictions of the system: he believed he had done what a father should do by leaving before things became violent, but the system treated leaving as a choice that disqualified him from immediate help.
Then and Now
These are two different chapters. The first image was taken while Mark was publicly speaking about homelessness in Toms River. The second reflects the rebuilding that followed after work, housing, responsibility and community entered the picture.
Public Advocate
In May 2025, NJ Spotlight News interviewed Mark outside the Ocean County Library. He told the publication that he had been homeless for two years and slept outside the library because there was nowhere else to go.
The article also documented Mark’s support for Christ Episcopal Church, which he said was “extremely helpful” because it brought agencies together, provided clothing, mobile showers and connections to resources.
Mark also told officials that he was helping care for an elderly woman who had nowhere else to sleep - showing that even while struggling himself, he was still looking out for someone else.
July 4 • Huddy Park
On July 4th at Huddy Park, John Baldino was there for the fireworks when a conversation began with several people experiencing homelessness. John asked Mark a simple question: “What’s your story?” Mark talked about recovery, housing barriers, his daughter, work, and wanting a real way forward.
John had battery-powered light-up roses from Universal Closeouts Inc. Instead of treating them as ordinary closeout inventory, he handed roses to several people and told them they could sell them and use the money to eat.
John says not everyone used the money the same way. Some people spent proceeds on alcohol or drugs. Mark sold his roses, used the money for food, and treated the opportunity like work. What mattered was not the rose itself. It was the choice Mark made with the chance he had been given.
Two days later Mark called John and asked, “Do you have anything else I can sell?” That question changed the relationship. Mark was not asking John to carry him. He was asking for another chance to carry himself.
John and Mark kept talking. Mark explained that he had a housing voucher but still could not secure a place to live. They discussed work, responsibility and what rebuilding would actually require. John also tried to determine whether Mark’s housing assistance could be used toward the room-and-board arrangement they were considering, but that path did not work.
John made a different offer: a place to stay and room and board in exchange for honest work, responsibility and participation. Mark said yes. From that point forward, the question was whether he would show up, work and use the opportunity wisely. He did.
From Recipient to Participant
Mark moved in. He worked. He helped. He showed appreciation. He became part of the team.
Over time, the relationship changed. Mark became someone helping build something that could serve other people facing the same kinds of barriers he knew personally.
That is the heart of Soles Saving Souls. We do not want a person permanently defined by the worst season of life. The goal is a pathway toward dignity, responsibility, work, community, faith and purpose.
Why Mark Matters
At the same time Mark was rebuilding, thousands of pairs of shoes were sitting in inventory. The connection became impossible to ignore.
Shoes could become protection. Dignity. Confidence. A reason to stop, talk and build trust.
And trust could become relationship. Relationship could become opportunity.
That realization helped give shape to Soles Saving Souls.
Mark’s Message
Mark’s story is not presented as a perfect ending. Restoration is ongoing. Work is ongoing. Recovery is ongoing. Responsibility is ongoing.
What changed was the direction.
Homelessness may describe someone’s circumstances. It does not define their value.
