A lot has been said about the bankrupt Lompoc Housing and Community Development Corporation (LHCDC) and its decision to close the city of Lompoc’s two emergency homeless shelters—the Bridgehouse and the Marks House—in the middle of winter, with very little notice.
There have been dozens of city and county meetings focusing on the issue. There have been many articles written, and persistent demands from the public for increased government and financial oversight.
With all this finger pointing and talk about money, it’s easy to forget what’s at the heart of the LHCDC problem: people.
“My fear is that we get so caught up in the political arena that we forget we’re talking about human beings,” Lompoc Warming Center Director Pastor Doug Conley told the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors at its Feb. 21 meeting.
Luckily, the people living at the reopened shelters feel anything but forgotten.
Priscilla Fowler—one of the Bridgehouse residents the Sun talked to in January after the facility abruptly closed—said she felt the turnaround time “went really fast.”
“I wasn’t one of those people who said, ‘Why don’t they open the shelter?’ I didn’t sit around and complain. I think the [county supervisors] did a really good job. I think they made a good decision because they realized the need for the homeless community,” she said, adding that she’s very appreciative of the support the shelters have received from the local community.
Fowler now works as a voluntary staff member at the Bridgehouse. In return, she receives free room and board.
“I do the intakes and oversee the family side. I make sure the families are OK, and I make myself available to the women in the emergency shelter in case they would feel more comfortable talking to another woman,” she said.
According to Fowler, the shelter’s atmosphere has changed greatly under the management of Good Samaritan Shelter.
“It’s a more comfortable environment. It’s a sigh of relief for everyone to be here,” she said. “It’s the same setting, but all the rules have changed and everyone follows them because they feel more respected [by the staff].”
A midday tour of the shelter revealed it has indeed undergone a transformation. All of the walls are freshly painted, and all of the rooms and bathrooms are decorated with colorful motifs.
“Everything is family oriented,” Fowler said, pointing to a shower curtain with orange, green, and blue octopi floating on it.
When Good Samaritan Services took over shelter operation on an interim basis last month, the staff asked the public to help redecorate the living areas by sponsoring rooms.
“My room is sponsored by Joyce Howerton, the lady running for 4th district supervisor,” Fowler said. “I got to meet her and talk to her for a while. That was nice.”
The way the shelter is run has changed, too.
“The staff is giving their time instead of saying, ‘Oh, if you walk down this road you can use a pay phone.’ We have case management onsite; they’re helping us with job placement, services, and getting us bus passes. And we get to eat our meals here every night,” Fowler said.
‘Everybody has a story’
Having a safe place to live is a key part of Fowler’s mission to get her children—a boy, 6, and a girl, 3—back from the county foster care system.
“I’ve been fighting for almost two years,” Fowler said. “I’ve had pretty much everything taken from me: my children, my [Child Welfare Services] support. The court is very close to terminating my parental rights, but I’m going to fight it. I might drive the judge crazy, but I don’t care. Pretty much everything I do is for my kids.”
The 25-year-old is equally frank about how she got to this point in her life.
“Everybody has a story, and mine is a short story,” she said. “I was adopted. … I was born addicted to coke. But I was raised by a good family; I never did drugs, I wasn’t even around drugs until I was about 20 years old.”
Fowler started using methamphetamine when she was 22.
“I worked for the county in the welfare department. My position ended, but I was still hanging out with some of my coworkers. They were doing meth, so I thought, ‘I’ll just use a little bit. It won’t be a big deal,’” she said, stressing that she never used while she was pregnant.
But it was a big deal. Fowler got hooked, and the county took away her children. The trauma of losing her kids forced Fowler to reassess her lifestyle, and she started the long process of getting clean.
She moved from Santa Maria to Lompoc to get away from her ex-husband.
“I decided I would be less distracted and get more done if I came to Lompoc,” she explained.
She did probation—with a few hitches, on which she won’t elaborate—and underwent drug treatment in compliance with Proposition 36.
The Bridgehouse closure was a bit of a setback, she said, because she needs a permanent address to comply with court orders. But now she’s back and she’s working for Good Sam. She hopes the position will meet the court requirement of getting a job, at least for now.
“I see my kids once a month. They’re in Santa Maria, so I have to take the bus. I take the bus to meet my lawyer or if I have to be in court,” she said.
With a soft chuckle, she described her children’s penchant for shoes: The last time she visited, Fowler’s daughter asked her for a pair of purple, sparkly boots.
“I have to get those for her this weekend,” she said.
According to Fowler, being in a shelter has given her the sober environment and consistent drug testing she needs, along with “the hope to keep going.”
“This is a safe place to be, and being homeless isn’t a crime, so I can get my kids back,” she said.
“Being homeless, for some people, is a choice. For others, it’s something that just happens,” she continued. “It’s not fun to be homeless. When I had my son with me, it was really hard on him because I moved around too much. … It’s better to have a family environment.”
The Bridgehouse, she said, has given her the family environment and support she needs.
“I have no support system at all,” she said. “The only support system I have now are these people right here.”
Change for the better
When Joseph Gaitan speaks, the words coming out of his mouth don’t match the words on his face—literally. Tattooed across his neck in shaded, angular text is the name of his former gang affiliation, Southside. Scrawled over his left eyebrow in looping cursive is the name of his hometown, Whittier.
But Joseph doesn’t like to talk about that part of his life anymore. He’s too busy providing for his family to care about his old neighborhood or rival gangs.
Joseph is currently studying to become an auto mechanic at Allan Hancock College. He and his wife, Lydia, are also serving as on-site managers of the Marks House.
“We’ve been wanting to come out here [to the Marks House] for a long time,” he said.
Before coming to the Marks House in February, the Gaitans were living at the Good Samaritan Shelter in Santa Maria. But when the Marks House reopened, they moved to Lompoc to be closer to Lydia’s family.
“This is the last stop before we get our own home. I truly believe that. God is on our side,” Lydia said. “But this is a great place for people who want to change and do something with their lives.”
The Gaitans are those kind of people. Both Lydia and Joseph have gang-related pasts.
“Prison, parole—you name it,” Lydia said.
Joseph’s story is particularly transformative: As a small child, he was uprooted several times. He talked of parental troubles, of living with his grandparents in Santa Maria before moving with his mother to Los Angeles to make a new start. But that start took him further down a rough path.
“I met my homeboys who had experienced the same things I had: no dad, drug addiction … . We became brothers. No one could mess with us,” he recalled.
Joseph doesn’t like to dwell on his past, but he doesn’t minimize his criminal history either.
“I’d been in jail 20 times by the time I was 30 years old,” he said. “If I didn’t have something, I’d do whatever I had to do to get it. If I had to hurt someone, I’d do it. I was thinking like a child. … I was married to my neighborhood.”
Joseph got out of prison in December 2008.
“Straight from the train, I got in a little jam. I never reported to my parole officer—ever. I was already on the run, straight off the train. It was like Catch Me If You Can,” he said.
He called his brother, who was living in Santa Maria, and asked him if he could come visit.
“My brother has always been a good, hard-working man. When I got up here he said, ‘Why don’t you work?’ So I did. I got a taste of actually being productive,” he said.
So for eight months Joseph painted houses. He got his driver’s license, he met his future wife, and he fathered a child. But, eventually, the law caught up with him. He went back to jail to serve his time, but when he got out, something inside him had changed.
“I had a responsibility. I realized [the gang lifestyle] wasn’t worth it,” he said. “Now everything I do, I take into account my family and the consequences. … I’m just glad God opened my eyes and helped me realize there was a better life.”
Joseph picked up under-the-table work as a roofer, and he and Lydia were doing relatively well until the housing market tanked in 2008. The work dried up and it got harder and harder to make ends meet. That’s how they ended up at Good Sam.
“[Good Sam] has helped us out so much. If it wasn’t for them, I don’t know where we would be—honestly, honestly. That’s why whatever they need, I do it,” Joseph said.
The staff at Good Sam helped Joseph enroll in classes at Hancock and secured funding for his textbooks and school supplies. He’s confident his education will help him find work in the future.
He admitted that having a criminal record makes it difficult to provide for his family because companies don’t want to hire him.
And it doesn’t help that the gang lifestyle is like an addiction, he said.
“You’re always going to want to be in the action. It’s like when you crave something; my craving was to be in the mix,” he explained. “But I’m a changed man, so I’m not biting into that.”
Being in a structured program like the one offered by Good Sam helps him stay on the straight-and-narrow.
At Marks House, everyone has to consent to random drug testing. There are house rules and chores, and each family has to cook dinner one night a week.
“We’re living comfortable here. As they say at Good Sam, ‘It’s a hand up, not a handout.’ You have to meet your responsibilities,” he said. “Since the day of the Board of Supervisors meeting [on Feb. 21], I’ve been really happy.”
Joseph said he’s happy LHCDC is in the process of dissolving.
“I think we needed that to happen. I always think something good comes out of something bad,” he said. “There’s no reason this house should be shut down. But now it’s open again, and it’s better than before.”
Contact Managing Editor Amy Asman at aasman@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Apr 5-12, 2012.