Women Who Won’t Be Home for the Holidays : YWCA in Santa Ana Has to Turn 40 Away, Hopes to Have More Beds by Next Christmas

On park benches, in alleyways, in chilled concrete parking garages, 40 women will wake up this Christmas morning in Santa Ana without a home and with no one to share the holiday.

“There is no room in the inn,” said Mary Douglas, director of the YWCA, which had to turn these women away on Christmas Eve.

But by next Christmas, these women may at least have beds. By then, construction at the YWCA is expected to add 20 rooms to accommodate 40 women, just about the number who used to bed down in the YWCA parking lot near Broadway and 15th Street until the city put an end to that practice last year.

The women, only a fraction of an estimated 4,000 to 8,000 homeless throughout Orange County, used to spend their nights sleeping in the YWCA parking lot. But protests from surrounding businesses and enforcement of city zoning laws put a halt to that in June, 1984. Jean Forbath of Share Our Selves (SOS), a charity based in Costa Mesa, estimates that there are only 400 beds in Orange County for the homeless. In November, SOS provided 19,876 people with temporary food, shelter or help in getting medical attention, she said.

Temporary shelter also is provided by other groups, such as Christian Temporary Housing, which can house nine families in a building with bedrooms and a commercial kitchen in Orange, according to spokeswoman Loyce Whitley. And the Orange Coast Interfaith Shelter in Costa Mesa will find temporary and emergency housing for about 75 people over Christmas, said Darleen York, an adviser to temporary residents.

But the women who attended Christmas-eve dinner at the YWCA, generally about 40 to 60 years old, slept at night in the Y’s parking lot for about 18 months before authorities stopped it.

“There is no housing for them, nor is there any place to refer them,” said Douglas. “They have literally fallen out of the mainstream and are not able to get back into it.”

Last summer, the YWCA began a building program and has raised about $450,000 to date toward a goal of $1 million, Douglas said. Construction of rooms atop the YWCA’s gymnasium is scheduled to begin in the spring and perhaps be completed by the fall of 1986, she said.

“We certainly hope we can have it going before the winter comes again,” Douglas said. “The worst is generally from the months November through March because that’s the cold weather.”

The plight of the homeless women and the unavailability of housing makes Christmas “a dreadful time of the year for all of us here,” Douglas said.

‘Bag Ladies’ to Public

To much of the public, the women are known only as “bag ladies” because they carry their few personal belongings with them in shopping bags.

“We simply don’t use that term at all,” Douglas said. “It is degrading and demoralizing for the ladies. They are women without homes.”

They were not always this way.

“They are all women who are currently alone, divorced, widowed,” Douglas said. “The majority . . . have been married, had children (and are) not able to identify the skills . . . developed over all those years.”

Generally they are women whose fathers or husbands helped them make decisions, she said. “Then (they) lose those support systems and are very frightened to make decisions.”

For one reason or another--emotional strain, financial limitations--the women have no relatives or friends able or willing to take them in.

But there are success stories.

“Many . . . we’ve been able to assist, to match them up two or three together to get a small apartment to get going again,” Douglas said.

One 45-year-old woman was once a nun before developing an inoperable brain tumor that left her unable “to continue her duties,” Douglas said.

About that time, the woman’s mother died, throwing the former nun and her widowed father into deep depression. Beset with grief, the father apparently did not realize how his daughter’s life was deteriorating, Douglas said.

“He wasn’t able to deal with anything . . . other than the loss of his wife,” she said.

Change of Heart

Then, in September, the former nun required major abdominal surgery, Douglas said.

“Hearing that triggered something in (her father),” Douglas said. “It evidently shook him enough that he assisted (in arranging) her surgery.”

Following the operation, the father came to the YWCA with his daughter to say “how thankful he was she had had a place to come to and people cared about her,” Douglas said.

Since then, the father has helped place the former nun in a board and care home.

The woman still returns to the YWCA to visit her old friends, “and it’s just a world of difference,” Douglas said. “It’s a very special gift for all of us to see.

“There were many days when she was so depressed, but she will come in (now) and it’s almost like a ray of light,” Douglas said. “It’s like she’s so thankful for every day she has. Anytime any of us feel a little depressed we think of her and we’re energized again.”

The woman joined her old friends on Christmas Eve for turkey dinner.

“Although it appears more festive because there’s a tree and there’s lights, the women can’t help but reflect on happier times,” Douglas said. “Probably the thing they appreciate most is they have a place to come, and they are treated with dignity and are with other women in the same situations.

“This is a low point for them. They are depressed, angry probably. They aren’t asking for handouts. They assist wherever they can. They want to help with the cooking of the dinner.

“There are (donated) gifts. There’s been an outpouring from the community. People drop in and (the women) appreciate seeing people care about them. They are very grateful.”