Side Dishes for Destitute Are Despair, Hope for ’89

Tony and Gaynelle Romero slept--or tried to sleep--through three rainy nights, sheltered only by a trash dumpster behind a Laguna Hills discount store.

When a store security guard found the couple on the third night, he gave them bus fare and directions to the National Guard Armory shelter in Santa Ana. It was there, in the shelter, that Romero, 27, and his wife, 28, learned of Sunday’s Christmas dinner for the homeless. After hitchhiking 900 miles with hope and the few possessions they could carry, the Albuquerque couple figured they qualified.

“We really don’t know what is next,” Gaynelle Romero said. “We’ve been married for 5 years, and this is the worst it’s ever been. Hopefully, next Christmas will be better.”

“It will be a lot better,” said Romero, an out-of-work cook. “It’s just hard to get a job when on every application form you have to put down street person instead of an address.”

‘Panicky’ About Diners

Despair and determination and cloudbursts and sunshine were side dishes at a festive meal of ham, stuffing, cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie served to about 500 homeless Sunday afternoon at Mater Dei High School in Santa Ana. The dinner, sponsored by parishioners of Our Lady Queen of Angels Roman Catholic Church in Newport Beach, found a home on the grounds of the Catholic school after being turned away by other facilities “that got panicky about having homeless people around,” according to an organizer.

Several buses pulled up to the schoolyard through the day, disgorging men and women and families with young children, gathered from 13 homeless shelters in the county. They sat at long lunch tables under an outdoor canopy, and applauded Christmas carols sung in Spanish and in English.

Volunteer servers--some of them teen-agers wearing fashionably ripped blue jeans and plastic garbage bags as improvised rain ponchos--brought loaded plates to diners who did not wear torn clothing or trash bags by choice.

“There is a horrendous gap,” Father Bill McLaughlin said, acknowledging the economic distance between his parishioners and the homeless they cooked for on Sunday. “Many of the people who are here to help today have a real desire to give back, to become involved in public service and give some meaning to their lives.”

The dinner, organized by members of Street People in Need (SPIN), a Queen of Angels homeless assistance group, grew out of the group’s twice-weekly trips to county parks to pass out sandwiches, blankets and and toothbrushes to the homeless. McLaughlin speculated that rain may have dampened attendence at Sunday’s dinner, a first-time event publicized through flyers posted on telephone poles in outdoor areas where the homeless sleep and in shelters.

The holiday gathering was an uplifting break for Marie Kuehner, who said she left “an unhealthy situation” in Oregon with her four young children a few weeks ago. She has been staying at the Salvation Army shelter in Santa Ana and looking for an apartment she can afford. The search has been discouraging.

“I came here because I thought there would be jobs and good people in Orange County,” Kuehner said in a whisper-soft voice. “But the apartments cost so much here. It’s hard to be strong. My kids are leaning on me and feeling insecure. And they’re feeling my insecurities too.”

Although Sunday’s dinner didn’t answer the question of where Monday’s meals would come from, Kuehner said, “It’s a family-oriented atmosphere, and it boosts your spirits. That helps right now.”

Mike, who declined to give his last name and said he has been living on the streets off and on for 3 years, joked between forkfuls of food that “I’m up for adoption.”

His homeless days may soon be over: Mike said he started work last week at a facility for the mentally retarded. Until he can save enough money for a deposit on an apartment, his occasional home is the Orange County Rescue Mission.

“A dinner like this makes the day better for some people, but it makes it more difficult for others,” he said, stroking his tobacco-stained gray beard. “I think it’s especially hard for anybody like me, who has had a family and knows what they’re missing.”

Volunteers were also deeply affected.

“I’m just trying to do more for people who don’t have as much as I do,” said Sue Wyninegar, a SPIN member. “I feel like anybody, any one of us, could be in their place.”

“It’s overwhelming,” Lillian Cassutt said simply.

A few miles away, families also gathered to help the homeless in a Christmas celebration that intentionally slighted Santa Claus. Religious themes were the centerpiece of the Christmas Pageant for the Homeless, a weekend fund-raiser at the Sisters of St. Joseph Convent in Orange.

“We brought our grandchildren here because we wanted to expose them to more than Santa and toys at Christmastime,” said Patricia Dufault, who took her 3-year-old grandson, Nicholas, to hear the Chancel Choir of Trinity United Presbyterian Church sing in the convent auditorium. Nicholas, who wore a pipe-cleaner halo, forgot his angelic manners as he tugged his grandmother toward the bathroom.

Maria Martinez of Santa Ana accompanied her sister-in-law and five nieces and nephews to see Las Posadas, a traditional Mexican re-enactment of Joseph and Mary’s search for shelter on the first Christmas. More than a dozen men and women--dressed as Joseph and Mary, shepherds and angels--tramped from cardboard inn to cardboard inn before finally finding a musical welcome.

Leading two wide-eyed children, Martinez followed the procession, swaying with the songs and applauding the happy ending. For Martinez, it was a story with a modern-day moral.

“A lot of people in Orange County are homeless, just as Jesus was homeless,” she said. “That is what we should not forget.”