Churches Provide Sheltered Lives : Homeless: Congregation members are sharing their residences to help people get jobs, save money and get off the streets.

When SuEllen Munoz went looking for a job last year, she worried about more than just whether she would qualify for the position:

Where would she find suitable clothes and shoes? If she did find the clothes, how would she keep them clean? How would she keep herself clean and presentable?

The concerns, minor worries for most job seekers, loom like major hurdles when you are, like Munoz, homeless.

“A lot of it is mental,” she said recently, tired at the end of a day that had begun at 5 a.m. “You say to yourself, ‘I don’t look like someone they would want to hire anyway, so what’s the use.’ When you are homeless, you wonder how people are looking at you.”

Many homeless people like Munoz are trapped by a cruel Catch-22 of homeless life: when you are homeless it is nearly impossible to get a meaningful job. Yet without a job and a steady paycheck one can hardly afford a home.

It is a dilemma that social welfare officials have been unable to solve through traditional job counseling programs.

But several Orange County homeless people who participated in an innovative winter shelter program have been able to overcome the odds, not only finding employment but saving enough money to get off the streets.

Beginning last November and ending earlier this month, the program used about two dozen churches around the county whose congregations agreed to shelter up to 12 homeless people for rotating two-week periods.

A March survey indicated that about 65% of the nearly 70 participants had found permanent employment and about 50% had found permanent housing, figures that are expected to rise after the program’s last round of participants are surveyed, said coordinators.

Sponsors say the program has been successful because it has served not only as an emergency shelter but as a cushion for people who need a relatively short period of time to get on their feet again.

“It is a program that serves a specific niche of the homeless population,” said Susan Oakson, a coordinator with the Orange County Homeless Issues Task Force. “These are adults who need about 60 days of respite, if you will, to get into a more stable situation.”

The lack of stability in the lives of the homeless is a major deterrent to finding employment, according to directors of several local employment agencies.

“Having a home is not a requirement to be able to do a job; however, I do believe it is a concern with an employer,” said Barbara Sneve, a counselor with Jobs Plus, the county’s job-training agency.

Employers “would be concerned about an individual’s ability to commit to and make it to a job on time. To be homeless is a type of instability,” she added.

Many employers might be unwilling to take a chance on such a person, especially for a permanent position, said Lila Zavetsky, co-owner of Tempaid, an Anaheim-based employment agency.

Zavetsky is especially sensitive to the issue because her congregation at Our Redeemer Lutheran Church in Garden Grove was involved in the winter shelter program. She offered to help find jobs for many of those who sheltered at the church and ended up hiring SuEllen Munoz as an office manager.

“I said I needed a typist and she said she typed,” Zavetsky said of Munoz. “She turned out to be a godsend, and now she’s running my office. If you give people a chance they will prove themselves.”

For Munoz, 40, and her husband Rolando, 33, the job offer could not have come at a better time. She had been a supervisor at a large department store but was laid off after suffering a serious leg injury.

Although she received $448 monthly in disability, the couple could not afford to keep their Costa Mesa apartment. Rolando was also unemployed. Trained as an architect in his native Bolivia, he has been forced to accept on-again, off-again construction work because he does not have the credentials to practice his profession in the United States.

The couple stayed in shelters and motels for several weeks before entering the interfaith shelter network program last December, with exactly $7.19 in their pockets.

While in the program, they were offered job skills counseling and were expected to look for work and establish a savings plan to cover deposits that would be necessary for an apartment or house.

Munoz’s job search--which would have been difficult anyway because of her disability--was made even harder, she said, because she did not have the resources that most people can call on, like a closet full of clothes or a bathroom and kitchen steps away.

That put her at a disadvantage in vying for positions for which she was qualified--in areas such as sales, computer work and personnel.

“The types of jobs I was looking for you need a new suit, shoes, even a brief case,” she said. “You can’t go in tennis shoes and torn jeans.”

Indeed, clerical positions are a “hard place” for homeless job applicants, Zavetsky said.

“It’s because you need the right clothes and a certain appearance,” she explained. “But some areas, like industrial labor and construction, are much easier, especially for permanent placement.”

Zavetsky estimated that 5% to 10% of the job applicants who come to her firm are homeless.

The biggest problems they face are transportation, obtaining clean clothes and work shoes, and keeping themselves presentable while living in often unhygienic surroundings.

Zavetsky said her company supplies its homeless clients with bus tokens and proper clothes and shoes. The company also keep lists of shelters--so clients won’t have to spend a night on the streets--and of volunteers who will provide showers.

“Before I got involved I had no idea there were so many homeless people in Orange County,” Zavetsky said. “These are people who are trying to get started or are knocked off their feet, and they need a helping hand.”

For Rolando and SuEllen Munoz, the shelter program has provided a springboard. They have been able to save more than $4,500, said SuEllen, who proudly pointed out the entry in a savings account book.

“We came in with no wings, and now they have grown back,” said Rolando Munoz, helped along by the kindness and generosity of shelter program volunteers who had initially been strangers to them.

At the Community United Methodist Church in Huntington Beach, the last stop in the program, the couple showed off the boxes of clothing, furniture, dishes, and other items that have been donated to them during the stay.

They were planning to spend about 45 days in a hotel--courtesy of one of Rolando’s previous employers--before moving into their new apartment. Once settled, they plan to become involved as volunteers in next year’s shelter project.

“The program has taught us that we still love ourselves and that we can give of ourselves,” SuEllen said.