First came the apartment. Then he got clean. Now he’s giving back [Video]

The first time Colin Beaudry was arrested, he was just 13 years old. Now, at 47, Beaudry is finally breaking a cycle of addiction, incarceration and homelessness — a change he hopes will inspire others.

Beaudry now lives alone in an apartment he finally secured in April after a year of living on the street. He even has cat named Kit Kat.

“Maybe I’ll give someone else hope, too,” said Beaudry as he sat at a picnic table in Dundonald Park in Ottawa’s Centretown neighbourhood.

“If they see that someone else could make it, that was in the same shoes as them — not a lot of people make it out of where we are — maybe it’ll show someone else that you can do it.”

Beaudry is tall and lanky with shoulder-length brown hair. He speaks quietly and smiles subtly.

He says he was bullied in school and it’s …