On a warm sunny day in the last week of February, a group of 33 individuals living unsheltered near the San Gabriel River in Bellflower and Downey moved out of encampments to start new lives in safe interim housing. The move was the 73rd encampment resolution through the Pathway Home program, which offers interim housing accompanied by supportive services and guides people onto a path toward permanent housing.
“We don’t want to give up on anybody,” said Ulises Garcia, a Homeless Outreach Services Team (HOST) supervisor with the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA). Sometimes, he explained, a change of venue is what a person needs to feel comfortable in interim housing and thrive. “Maybe they need hand holding at a smaller site.”
Vanessa Guillen, a Pathway Home program lead, addressed the group assembled at the staging area about the effort it takes to bring people inside. “For them to take that step and accept the help is all thanks to our outreach partners who work day in and day out… It’s all the work that goes into that client saying yes.”
One of those was Martha, 25, who intently picked through her belongings, packing them into yellow plastic bags, alongside a graffiti-filled wall below a freeway. Her two dogs, a honey-brown Chihuahua named Princess and a black one named Baby, sat nearby watching.
She previously had a placement in a motel, but it didn’t work out for her, so she decided to leave.
“I didn’t like it,” she said. “It was just too much.”
Now she was ready for a room in another—smaller—motel. Living outside had taken a toll. “It’s hard to be here sometimes,” said Martha, homeless since she was 19. “My dogs can’t handle the cold. I don’t want to put them through that.”
She was also weary of the dirt all around her. “Your clothes on the ground get dirty. I hate that.”
People who move into motel rooms after having lived outside often say the first thing they are going to do is take a long shower or a long bath or a long nap.
The first thing Martha did upon arriving in her room was give Princess and Baby a very long bath. Done, Princess stood in the bathroom wet and shivering. Martha used the only towel in her room to dry off the dogs, completely soaking it. (Service providers at the motel found her a couple more towels.)
At the encampment near where Martha had lived, others were busy packing up.
“I’m tired of being out here,” said Vanessa, 30, in a pink knit beanie. “It’s really cold, and it’s very tiring having to get water, food. Every day is a mission. No heat, no electricity.”
Vanessa said her mother kicked her out of the house when she was 19. She couch surfed with friends for about five years before ending up outside. She was offered a place in a congregate shelter.
And in her future: “Probably go to school. I have to find my hobby or whatever that I like to do. Yeah, my passion.”
Amber, 38, from Long Beach, had been out on the streets for several years after her mother kicked her out for drug use. Then, her grandmother, with whom she was close, died. “I kind of collapsed, so I checked out.”
She has two boys, aged 14 and 20. “I’m going to be a grandmother,” she said.
Life had been hard outside for her and her partner, Jason, 47, who has three little children of his own. “It’s a hard way to live,” Jason said. “Out there, you’ve got to become beast or you become prey.”
With Amber and Jason in their new motel room was their six-month old cat, Kit Kat. “I’d like to get back into the real world,” Amber said. “It’s hard to get back on track without housing.”
Now, she said, “I’m hoping to regain sobriety and hold a job. And get back in my children’s lives.”
Amber said there are good people out there in encampments. “Just broken people who need a little help,” she added.
The couple credit their outreach worker from PATH with getting them the help and the housing they needed. “She didn’t look down on us,” said Amber.
“She never gave up on us,” said Jason.
This operation took a colossal effort involving many: Pathway Home, LAHSA, service providers PATH and HOPICS, the LA County Sheriff’s Department’s Homeless Outreach Services Team (HOST), LA County Supervisor Janice Hahn (whose district includes Bellflower), and Bellflower Mayor Sonny R. Santa Ines, who stood before the assembled group in the staging area and called out the areas that provided help for the move.
“Let’s hear it for the county!” he shouted.
“Bellflower, make some noise!” he said as people cheered.
Kimberly Barnette, a leader of the Pathway Home program, told the group that it was the county’s partnership with the city of Bellflower that allowed Pathway Home to move so many people inside even as the program diversifies its interim housing options. “We were able to leverage their Mercy House shelter which is historic for us because we haven’t been able to partner like that, so thanks to the city of Bellflower,” Barnette said.
