Fitness Program Aids Those Rebuilding Lives

The scene at the trendy dance-and-exercise studio on Santa Monica’s Main Street starts out typically enough: Young, upwardly mobile types in designer leotards bump and grind to loud rock music.

Then the scene changes.

Expensive, colorful Reeboks are replaced by older, tattered shoes that bear witness to time in the streets. Clothes might be gym trunks or sweat pants left over from high school instead of the latest from Danskin.

The transition comes as a regular class at the Main Street Dance & Exercise Studio is replaced by a group not usually seen in such surroundings: People who have been homeless or chronic drug abusers.

Free Sessions

Three nights a week, they attend free sessions of muscle-toning stretches, sit-ups, push-ups and other basic exercises. While the tempo is slower than at the regular class and the synchronization a little off, the smiles, groans and sweat are much the same.

The “fitness and wellness” classes are a new offering by the exercise studio, designed for people from the St. Joseph Center and Next Step, two Venice-based programs for the homeless, and from the Clare Foundation, a Santa Monica drug and alcohol recovery agency.

The program started in August and is still small, with only about 20 participants. But representatives of the agencies involved are eager to expand.

“For many people in the normal population, exercise is what keeps them glued together. Physical well-being contributes to mental well-being,” said Lisa de Mondesir, who owns the studio and came up with the idea for the classes.

“We pull them into another environment as a way to help them continue to make the transition” into mainstream society, said Kim Connell, who manages the studio and teaches many of the classes.

Organizers and participants rejected any notion that the classes might be a frivolous endeavor for people whose day-to-day life is a struggle.

“Homeless people need the fundamental basics, food, shelter,” De Mondesir said. “Beyond that, you’re dealing with what is going to allow them to function better, to raise them from their condition, to re-integrate into society. To do that, you need self-esteem and dignity. Exercise helps in every way: building your body, your esteem, a sense of yourself.”

After each session, the participants cool down, sipping seltzer water donated by the bottler and eating freshly baked muffins and pastries donated by a bakery.

The classes are not for down-and-out vagrants but for the so-called “transitional homeless,” those who have already started to enter the mainstream, who are holding down a job and who have moved into some sort of housing.

They must be in adequate physical shape and show that they are no longer using drugs or alcohol, De Mondesir said.