Joe Dudziak — known to many as “Chaplain Joe” — waited patiently outside the makeshift home built of cardboard walls, a plastic sheet for a roof and a couple of shopping carts full of materials the residents might need to stay alive.

“Helluva way to live,” Dudziak said, shaking his head. “It’s heartbreaking.”

A man came out of the encampment, approached Dudziak and accepted his offer of socks, toiletries, wet wipes and granola bars. Within a few days, Dudziak told the man, he’d be back with zero-degree sleeping bags because temperatures would soon drop below the freezing point.

On this cool, cloudy autumn day, Dudziak had already visited many Santa Fe campsites that offer shelter to people he calls the unhoused. During the three-hour effort, he gave away about 45 sack lunches and countless socks, gloves, batteries, toiletries, feminine hygiene products and mini fire extinguishers to these “brothers and sisters.”

No, he’s not really related to them by blood.

But they have become his family, said Dudziak, considered by many people to be a savior of those living on the streets. “They have nowhere to go, and I think it’s sad,” he said. Dudziak runs the grassroots nonprofit Chaplain Joe’s Street Outreach, which soon will have a website.

“It’s sad for people to be in that situation, and I wish society would step up and do something about it,” he said.

Dudziak is doing his best, with a growing group of volunteers who, like him, drive mobile supply shops filled with free goods for members of the city’s homeless community to help them survive another night and let them know somebody cares.

“They appreciate him, they acknowledge him. Most of them know him,” said Steve Brugger, one of several people who nominated Dudziak for one of The New Mexican’s 10 Who Made a Difference awards for 2023.

“He acknowledges their humanity, and they sense that he is real,” Brugger said. “He’s Chaplain Joe.”

Indeed he is. The New Mexico native, a U.S. Air Force veteran, turned to helping homeless people several years ago as a volunteer at the Interfaith Community Shelter at Pete’s Place after working decades in construction and as a building inspector in the northern part of the state.

He began hitting the streets with supplies about four years ago, Dudziak said, meeting the homeless where they are and winning their trust.

“His best friends are the people who are on the streets,” said Paige Kitson, street outreach program director for Youth Shelters and Family Services. She also nominated Dudziak for the award.

“There’s a realness to him — he’s genuine, grounded and so funny,” she said. “He is just this giant ball of love.”

Dudziak said he chooses to look at each member of the homeless community as “who they are” and not judge them by their status or behavior. He listens to their stories of how they became homeless. Substance abuse plays a role sometimes, as does mental illness and behavioral health problems, he said.

Divorce, domestic abuse and rising, unaffordable rent also factor in, he said.

Most people want to improve their lives and get jobs, but jobs are not easy to come by for those who are struggling to find food and shelter for another night, Dudziak noted.

The trauma they experience on the street makes their personal hills even harder to climb.

He is seeing more elderly people and those who use wheelchairs — but rarely children — in the encampments.

As for his own story, Dudziak prefers to speak of his life as it is now rather than his past. In talking with some of the people he encountered on this recent day, he hinted he might have experienced homelessness at least once.

He married and divorced, he said, providing little else about his personal life.

Dudziak began his current mission after a midlife health crisis — he offered no details — made him reevaluate his life.

“Everybody knows they are going to die, but they think it’s 20 years away,” he said. “They don’t think it will be now, six months from now.”

He said the challenge gave him a “different perspective,” one that made him realize the purpose of life is to “help people who are less fortunate than you — and no matter where you are, there’s always somebody less fortunate than you.”

Dudziak said he realizes his work does nothing to help solve the problem of homelessness. He believes that will happen when various people and organizations come together to find ways to offer more affordable housing and additional mental and behavioral health services, and develop an understanding and respect for those living out in the cold, night after night.

He thinks offering a day center for the homeless — who often are asked to leave shelters during the day, even in winter — could make a difference as well.

Meanwhile, he and his band of volunteers load up their vehicles with goods bought with private donations — his nonprofit takes no government money, he said — and look for those who need some looking after.

“We are helping people survive another day,” Dudziak said as he stopped to offer aid to a man he knew. “Maybe tomorrow is the day they turn their life around.”

“We are helping people survive another day. Maybe tomorrow is the day they turn their life around.”

Joe Dudziak