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Jolene Piliero considered the brightly colored birds and puffy clouds that now adorn the wall beneath the railroad bridge at Kensington and Lehigh avenues and felt her spirits lift.
"It's absolutely just such a 180 degree turnaround from where I was and where this place was just one year ago today," she said.
Piliero used to live beneath the bridge. Now she is a year sober.
Not that it was easy.
"I actually was hit by a car, no, it was the best thing. One of the worst things that could happen to anybody, it was the best thing that happened in my life," she said.
Piliero took advantage of the expanded services offered as part of the Resilience Project to get housed and return to school.
The effort has had spotty results.
Around the corner from the new mural, half a dozen people camped out, openly using drugs.
Neighbor Lisa Rollins says she still finds needles on her front porch.
"My children are afraid to come out of the house at some points because they're out here," Rollins said.
But officials believe they are making progress, however incremental, and Piliero is a believer.
"That mural, the birds being tethered down, and spreading their wings and flying, it really can be done," she added.