A New Home for Skid Row Women in L.A.
Of the first four women to move into the Downtown Women’s Center Residence that opened officially last week, one was 75 years old and had been spending her nights at the all-night movies; one transferred from a Skid Row hotel where she had been living in terror ever since all her belongings, including her treasured television, were stolen, and two were essentially homeless, taking temporary shelter with friends.
Now home for them is a permanent place, safe, clean, dignified and--as visitors touring the 333 S. Los Angeles St. residence at the dedication last Thursday kept repeating in stunned admiration--not only pretty but elegant.
Muted mauves, pinks and soft yellows and framed floral prints are used throughout the halls, cozy lounges and kitchen areas. In each of the 48 rose-and-gray individual rooms there are pictures and bulletin boards on the walls, colored spreads on the wide, firm beds, floor-length mirrors on the closets, sinks and small refrigerators in the cupboard wall units. And, a porch light and mailbox just outside each door.
The residence is probably not “just like home” for many of those who will be living there, at least not any home they have lived in within recent memory. It is, however, decidedly homelike, combining basic features of boarding houses and single-room occupancy hotels.
Two years in the planning and making, the residence, like the 8-year-old daytime Downtown Women’s Center next door, was founded by Jill Halverson for the women of Skid Row. Those women tend to be poor and homeless. The majority have histories of mental illness. Often they are disabled, aged, and malnourished. Some are ill enough to qualify for government assistance; others live more marginally. Either way, many of them have known the life of the loaded shopping cart, the furtive search for shelter in a doorway or parking lot, the increasing alienation that well-founded and imagined terrors bring.
For such people, moving into a haven like the residence may be desirable and the fulfillment of any number of prayers and dreams, but it is no easy thing.
Survival Tactics
The women have been moving in over the past two weeks, a few at a time, and, Halverson said, during the transition, habits and survival tactics from the old life style have come with them. Some have been sleeping on the floor beside their beds; sponge bathing and washing their hair at the sinks in their bedrooms rather than in the showers and tubs down the hall; using coffee cans as nighttime chamber pots rather than brave a common hallway.
And sleeping long hours. That was Halverson’s first observation, she said. It was probably the first safe and undisturbed sleep some had had in years.
The last time Rose Arzula lived in an apartment or hotel was 1974. Since then, she said, “I’ve been outside.”
Of all the new residents, she is Halverson’s oldest friend, a woman whom she often credits as the inspiration for the center and residence. A strong, good-looking Mexican-American woman in her 50s, her life on the streets was difficult, but there was a familiar, and familial, pattern to it at times. She had her shopping carts and friends--Arturo, Woodie, Chino--gentlemen winos who hung out with her almost as a family unit. They offered protection at night; she offered food.
“Everybody went away,” she shrugged the other day at the center, remembering that time before her friends died or disappeared and the streets became so dangerous.
And so, for the first time in 12 years she has a room of her own. For a month. The rents are monthly and that suits her fine. It may not be to her liking, and she is quick to point out, may not be to their liking--they being Halverson, the manager, Gerry Kirkessner, the young maintenance man, Dan Albrecht, and the other women. Better to keep it temporary.
Even at that, moving in was no small occasion. She stalled a little the day before her move-in date, sorting through the accumulations of several loaded shopping carts, figuring out how all that stuff would translate into dresser drawers, muttering a little glumly to Halverson at one point, “It’s my last day to be normal.”
She has, in short, done more than change the place where she puts her head down at night. She has committed herself, however temporarily, to a profoundly different life. For all her reservations, she likes it.
“It’s better than to be outside all the time. It’s a beautiful place. “
Last week Mayor Tom Bradley, City Council President Pat Russell and Gayle Wilson, wife of Sen. Pete Wilson, came to the opening and spoke of the love that went into the building. The Rev. Don Kribs, the Rev. Alice Callaghan and Rabbi Leonard Beerman, all friends of the center, delivered invocations. A banner designed by the future residents was unfurled--a house filled with hearts.
And Halverson gave thanks--singling out some special volunteers, her board president and chief fund-raiser for the $1.2-million privately funded project, Bettina Chandler, the hotel’s architect Brenda Levin, developer Wayne Ratkovich, her construction liaison Dick Barbarino and secretary Jean Karaganis, and, her right hand in everything, center manager Brenda Mitchell.
The women will be moving in throughout the month until it is filled. Not everyone who needs a room will be housed, Halverson said, saying of the new building, “it’s a step” toward housing the city’s huge numbers of homeless.
One of the Fortunate
Jeanie, who did not want to use her last name, is one of the fortunate who will be moving in. On May 12 she will leave behind the hotel where she pays $215 each month out of her welfare disability check for $228--”Well, by the time you get it cashed, it’s $223.
“They don’t compare at all,” she said last week after lunch at the day center, laughing a little when describing her present and future homes. “There’s roaches where I’m at. The room isn’t bad for a downtown hotel. Most rooms downtown cost $240, but I lucked out. The bathroom’s down the hall. It’s scary going down the hall at night, but you have to do it. That’s one thing I think I’m going to like about this place we have--and the room is beautiful. “
With that a smile that would not quit took over her face while she continued to talk. A pleasant-looking woman who appears to be in her 50s, she has picked out a corner room overlooking the garden. It will cost her $155. She could have chosen one for $135 and she knows that would have been easier on her, but she went for the corner room.
“I walked in this big one and I felt right. What’s $20 if you feel right?”
