Countywide : Renovation of Shelters Nears End

Karen and her two teen-age sons have been living in campgrounds, motels and shelters for the past year. Now the family lives at the Fullerton New Vista Shelter, and Karen says it is a relief to finally have a place to call home for a few months.

“It’s such a shock, after all the years of working, to realize one day you don’t have a home to go to,” said Karen, who now has a job as a nurse’s assistant. “A lot of times I feel like we’re shadow people--you see a lot of us out there in the alleys and pushing shopping carts.”

Karen is able to work as a nurse’s assistant knowing that she and her two teen-age sons will be safe at the cozy two-story house that looks like any other home on the block.

And with a $90,000 addition nearly complete, the facility will soon be able to offer temporary shelter to eight families, instead of just six.

The shelter is one of five county transitional homes to be renovated or expanded as part of a $1-million HomeAid effort launched last summer by the Orange County Region of the Building Industry Assn. of Southern California.

Last summer, the association asked each of the five county supervisors to choose a shelter to receive HomeAid assistance, said Mike Lennon, spokesman for the BIA in Orange County. Then the group went to the directors of each temporary home and asked for a list of additions or repairs that could improve the shelters, Lennon said.

At the New Vista Shelter, for example, a garage that burned in a fire last year is being replaced by a new storage garage that has two rooms on a second floor. The addition is expected to be completed next month.

Renovations to the Anchor House in San Clemente and the Interval House were completed earlier this year. A complete renovation of the eight-unit complex at the Thomas House Temporary Shelter for Families in Garden Grove is expected to be finished by June, as is the construction of three three-bedroom duplexes in El Modena.

Volunteers donated time, materials and equipment to the project. When all five shelters are operational, the effort will have added 30 beds to the number available for the transitional homeless in Orange County, a 15% increase, Lennon said.

At the Interval House, which can house up to 26 battered women and children in transition, the BIA paid for the renovation of the kitchen, a fresh coat of paint inside and out, new carpeting, a new roof, a gated security fence and repairs to a back yard storage room, said Mary Walton, executive director.

“‘We’ve always believed in having a nice setting, but it’s not always been affordable,” Walton said. “We felt so fortunate that we were chosen for the program.”