Mission Offers Homeless a Port in the Storm

From financial matters to disagreements about the kids, Renna and her companion had been arguing for months.

A family road trip to Louisiana was supposed to help alleviate the tension, but the relationship was over before the couple even reached the state line.

Almost a year later, Renna, 37, recounted her odyssey as she sat in a conference room of the Inglewood apartment complex that she and 10 other women now call home.

On the trip, she recalled, a disagreement grew into an argument. Before she knew it, she and her three children had been booted from the family’s Dodge and left stranded outside a mini-mart, 80 miles east of Los Angeles.

The Last Straw

For Renna, who had endured months of erratic, abusive and sometimes violent behavior from the once-caring man, it was the final straw.

“I looked at my kids’ eyes and I realized I couldn’t put them through abuse like this,” Renna said. “My kids are all good, straight-A students, and I wasn’t going to let them fall to the bottom of the pit. I had to be more of a woman.”

But she had nowhere to go.

Sitting with Renna as she told her story were two counselors with the Midnight Mission family housing program.

For them, the story of Renna--who asked that her full name not be used--is all too familiar. Since 1994, workers at the Inglewood program have provided counseling, financial planning and free long-term housing to homeless women, men and children from throughout Los Angeles County.

Most clients turn to them after years of domestic violence. Others are victims of unfortunate circumstances. Whatever the reason, the mission helps them get back on their feet. It offers a one-year, rent-free stay in a private furnished apartment.

In exchange, participants agree to make sacrifices and abide by stringent rules.

For starters, they must obtain jobs within 45 days of entering the program and put 70% of their incomes into savings accounts set up in their names. They must attend weekly financial and counseling sessions. The idea, program directors said, is to end two problematic cycles: emotional and financial dependency.

There are other non-negotiable matters. Women leaving violent domestic situations who want to enter the program must obtain restraining orders against their former spouses or companions.

Curfews are strictly enforced--10 p.m. on weekdays, 11 p.m. on weekends--and all adults and children older than 15 must sign into and out of the complex. Televisions and telephones are not allowed in the apartments--a way to focus the clients on their jobs and their children.

Women at the house say they don’t mind the rules and look forward to the counseling and empowerment sessions.

“We teach them that it’s really important to take care of self,” said Faye Mandell, a social worker. “If there’s a loss in air pressure on a plane, you put the mask on yourself first. If you don’t have self-esteem, you can’t pass that on to your children.”

For Ilda Gonzalez, a 33-year-old mother of two who graduated from the program in 2000, one memorable lesson had to do with “red lights.”

Red lights, Mandell explained, are all the signs that a man might be trouble. Gonzalez now knows that she ignored several red lights when she married a jealous, possessive man.

“My husband had another daughter from another relationship who he didn’t take care of,” she said. “Why’d I think it was going to be different with my kids?”

It wasn’t. One day in 1999, as she carried her 2-year-old, Gonzalez’s husband swung at her face. He missed and struck the girl instead. After several months at a shelter for battered women in Long Beach, Gonzalez wound up at the Midnight Mission.

“It was like a dream,” she said. “It wasn’t going to be forever, but it was very nice.”

For a year, Gonzalez saved most of the modest income she made as a cashier at two department stores. She left the program with $13,000, part of which she used for a down payment on her first home.

“It’s nothing outrageous, but it’s a nice neighborhood,” she said of her modest two-bedroom Inglewood house.

The Inglewood Neighborhood Homeownership Center is working with several program participants to help them buy homes in the area, said the family housing co-director, Angelo Aguiar.

Hometown Lure

Program directors said Inglewood was chosen because the area’s reasonable home prices allow these families to stay in the community where many of their children have attended school.

“Inglewood’s really progressive in its efforts to encourage people to become homeowners,” said Carrie Gatlin, director of program development at the mission. “It was just a really good marriage between us and them.”

Renna, who was raised in Inglewood, is hoping to be able buy a place. “Inglewood is a good place for my children,” she said. “I want them to be mainly around their own culture and see where I was raised.” She said the last year had made her a different person.

“I was like a fuse when I came here,” Renna said. “Now I have a better understanding of how to deal with life. They’ve opened up my eyes.”

Taped to a living room wall in her apartment is a copy of a check for $147.79, her teenage daughter’s first paycheck as a carnival worker at Universal Studios. It’s Renna’s way of celebrating her child’s accomplishments.

“She’s been such a help to me,” Renna said of her eldest daughter, Larenna, 16. “Whenever I cried, she was always there.”

Four months ago, Renna got a job at a custodial company in Los Angeles. She’s already been promoted to a supervisory position.

“We’ve come a long way,” Renna said, smiling.