Less research, more action for the homeless

Shelters filled to capacity

By YVETTE CABRERA / Register Columnist

It's a cold February night and at the California National Guard armory in Santa Ana dozens of homeless men, women and children are crowded inside, lined up as volunteers serve them dinner.

Nearby on a plastic mat I find 27-year-old Blanca Robledo arranging two paper plates of chicken, mashed potatoes and a mix of vegetables. She beckons to her daughter, 22-month-old Vanessa, so they can give a prayer of thanks.

Nearby at the entrance to the armory, security guards are still checking people in while doing weapon searches. This is the county's emergency shelter program and since November, Robledo, her boyfriend and Vanessa have found refuge here from the streets.

With her mom's help, Vanessa kneels near the plates of hot food and clasps her tiny hands together. It's noisy, but Robledo leans in, closes her eyes and her voice cuts through the clamor.

"Thank you papa dios (father God) for the food. Please help the kids who don't have anything to eat," says Robledo, a former grocery store deli worker.

The armory is no place for Vanessa, and Robledo knows this. I first met Robledo in January and one thing was clear to me from that first day. She desperately wanted to get into a transitional shelter and out of the armory, but all of the transitional shelters had waiting lists.

"We shouldn't be in this place. It's too unhealthy," she says and then pauses. "But it's better than being in the streets."

Health Care Agency public health nurse Paul Leon has followed Robledo as part of a pilot program called Comprehensive Health Assessment Team-Homeless. The nonprofit Illumination Foundation, newly created by a group of UC Irvine students involved with CHAT-H, has been able to place some families in motels, but resources are limited.

In February, Leon was able to place Robledo in a motel room for two days, and although it was a short day, it was a much-needed break for her.

"I want to get out of here as soon as possible. It's too much, too many bad memories," she tells me a few days later when she's back at the armory, referring to the years she was homeless as a child in Los Angeles.

It's a sad situation when a step up for these homeless families are motels in Anaheim, Orange, Santa Ana and Fullerton where seedy doesn't even begin to describe the conditions.

It's a bad situation when the county's two emergency shelters in the Santa Ana and Fullerton armories are filled to capacity, despite all of the agencies trying to help the homeless. In Fullerton last month, the armory was filled to capacity (200 people) 26 days of the month.

In the midst of all of this came news reports that Orange County Supervisor Chris Norby used campaign funds to pay for a week's stay in a Fullerton motel in August because of marital troubles, and labeled the expense a "study of homeless and motel families."

I spoke to Norby and he acknowledged that he had corrected the issue by reimbursing his campaign account, but said that he had in fact conducted research during that week. He also gave me almost five pages of notes he took while at the Fullerton motel.

"Anything I do like this, the public shouldn't pay for it. This is more of anecdotal type research and I don't work for the county's homeless agency," says Norby, whose fourth district encompasses Fullerton and parts of Anaheim, where some of these "residence" motels are located.

Norby's research focused on describing the motel ("the second-floor outside access walkway sagged noticeably"), the residents' cars, even ethnicities, but had little in terms of conversations with them. "I did not want to be seen as an undercover authority or snoopyâ¦" he wrote, though he did strike up conversations with people he met in stairways or landings.

Had Norby stayed at the motel purely for research purposes, sans the motivating factor of his marital problems and without attempting to charge it to his campaign, I might have been less skeptical. What's more, it's clear that the many homeless families I've interviewed (who don't have the option of simply checking into a motel) need more than research, they need action.

Norby could have simply walked into the Fullerton armory in his district and spoken to families there who I've found will tell their stories because someone is willing to listen. So that's where Norby agreed to meet me, a week from now.

"It's easy to become cynical and think that nothing can be done, but we have people at the county level who feel they can help them," says Norby.

As for Robledo, who has been at the Santa Ana armory since November, she hasn't lost hope that she'll be able to leave the emergency shelter soon.

"I walk all day, I have blisters on my feet, but I don't give up because of my daughter," says Robledo, who is also pregnant. "I stress out and I cry. Paul (Leon) tells me to hang in there. He's going to try to get us out of this place."


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