Martha House Opens a Door for the Homeless

Before she moved into Martha House in Orange, an emergency shelter for women, Josephine lived for three days on the streets of Santa Barbara.

“I slept under a bridge,” Josephine, 24, said. “I was out there without nothing. No clothes, no belongings . . . . I just got lost over there.”

She subsequently spent three weeks in a hospital being treated for severe depression. Josephine, who is four months pregnant, is one of five homeless women who have found refuge in Martha House, which reopened May 1.

The shelter is operated by the Orange County-based Episcopal Service Alliance and funded by county government and private donations. Although there are dozens of 24-hour shelters in Orange County that will take homeless women, Martha House is the only one exclusively for women, shelter director Patricia Smith said. There are an estimated 2,500 homeless women in the county, she said.

New Facility Larger

Before moving to Orange, the shelter operated for more than a year in Santa Ana as a daytime-only haven for the homeless. Its sponsors could not get that city’s approval for continued operation or expansion, and the shelter closed in July, 1984.

The new Martha House, designed as a 24-hour temporary home, is larger and better equipped than the old one, Smith said. In addition to sleeping quarters, the shelter has a living room, dining room, kitchen, and three bathrooms. The residents say the shelter is superior to others they have seen.

Since it opened, more than 50 homeless women have either phoned or appeared at the shelter’s doorstep looking for housing, Smith said. She has turned most of them away. The shelter will take only those who intend to find permanent housing and a steady income, a rule meant to exclude transients, “bag ladies” and other chronically homeless women.

“We make it clear that they must have plans for the future,” Smith said. “They must want permanent housing. They must want an income--either through a job or, if they’re disabled in some way, through government assistance.”

The shelter, at 275 S. Glassell St., is a stark white building that was a church, and later, a dance studio. There are 10 beds, but Smith has limited the number of residents to three until two badly needed stoves arrive.

A woman can stay two weeks, when her situation is re-evaluated, Smith said. If a woman is close to finding a job or permanent housing, she may be allowed to remain longer. Smith said residents are strongly urged to look for jobs during the day, and women without high school diplomas are urged to take the high school equivalency exam.

Finding Jobs Difficult

But Smith admitted that finding a job in Orange County is difficult for many women, especially the young and unskilled. Those who do have jobs usually earn little, she said.

“Women simply aren’t making enough money to afford permanent housing,” Smith said. “Many of them make only $6,000 a year. In my estimation, that’s poverty level, especially in an area like Orange County where housing is so expensive . . . . It’s amazing that women do as well as they do.”

Margi, 18, one of the first residents of the new Martha House, was earning $275 a month at a chicken take-out restaurant when she entered the shelter May 2. Margi has since left Martha House, but Smith said her plight is typical.

“She’s just one of thousands of exploited teen-agers who (have depended) on the meager wages of the fast-food business to support themselves,” Smith said. “The problem is, it’s impossible to live on such a low income.”

‘Poverty Is the Problem’

Situations like Margi’s, Smith said, prove to her that “shortages of housing or food aren’t the problem. Poverty is the problem.”

Not everyone at the shelter, however, attributes her problems to poverty. Maryann (not her real name), 20, said she was doing well three months ago. She said she was renting “a condo in Santa Ana that I shared with a roommate, and I had a good job as a certified nurse’s assistant . . . taking care of elderly people.”

But her life fell apart. She was chronically troubled by the eating disorders anorexia and bulimia, she said, and admitted herself to a hospital in Anaheim. When she left three months later, Maryann said, she had nowhere to go. She had been replaced at work, and her roommate had left.

With no home and no job, Maryann went to Martha House.

“I never thought I would end up in a situation like this,” Maryann said. But she is optimistic she will find work.

Another resident, however, has been discouraged by her job search.

“Orange County’s the worst place to look for a job,” said Kathy, 30. “If you don’t have a college education, forget it.”

‘I Had No Place to Go’

Kathy, who is 6 1/2 months pregnant, single and diabetic, also said she had a hard time finding a shelter that would take her. Many shelters are set up to treat people with specific problems such as alcoholism or drug addiction or who are victims of abuse, she said. “It seemed like I either had to be a beaten wife or a beaten mother to get in,” Kathy said.

“I had no place to go, and no place to sleep. I must have checked a half dozen places. They all referred me somewhere else or said they had no room.”

Kathy said she found some shelters specifically for pregnant women, but they rejected her because the fact that she has diabetes makes hers a high-risk pregnancy.

Finally, she found Martha House. “If I hadn’t come here, I don’t know what I would have done,” she said. “I’m real happy to be here.”

Smith emphasized that Martha House provides more than shelter and food.

“The women get emotional support too,” Smith said. “From the staff and from each other. We pay a lot of attention to each other.”

As a result, Maryann said, the other residents of the shelter, once complete strangers, have become friends.

“We have a common bond--and that, more than anything else, will help us work together to get out of here,” she said.