Shelter Helps Clients Turn Lives Around

Linda Holbrook was hooked on cocaine for five years and heroin for 20. At times, she lived on the streets of Downtown Los Angeles.

That was before she arrived in July at the Salvation Army Bell Shelter. Today, Holbrook has kicked her drug habits and is completing an accounting certification program at East Los Angeles Skills Center.

She is one of several success stories at the Bell shelter, where about 55 of the facility’s 150 clients attend vocational-training programs in the area. Nearly all attend the skills center, where they study electronics, auto mechanics, telecommunications, bookkeeping and several other subjects. About half a dozen students have graduated since May.

“The general population thinks that being homeless means being dumb,” shelter director Daryl Ogden said. “That simply is not true. All these people want is a chance to turn their lives in the right direction.”

Ogden and his staff of 18--all of whom are ex-drug users or formerly homeless--have designed the shelter to encourage more clients to pursue education. Those who attend school are rewarded with dormitory rooms separate from the main shelter.

“This is the first time in many years that I have been drug-free,” Holbrook, 40, said. “The shelter has given me an opportunity to motivate my life.”

The shelter links clients with other services, including English classes for Spanish speakers at the Ford Park Adult School in Bell Gardens. Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous meetings are conducted at the shelter, as are voluntary religious services in English and Spanish.

Social workers and lawyers visit the shelter weekly to provide legal assistance and to help with amnesty applications for undocumented immigrants, among other things. And a veterans affairs counselor assists veterans with benefits.

But to remain at the shelter and in the programs, clients must stay free of drugs and alcohol. Those attending school are given random drug tests and are required to open savings accounts with money they earn.

“When I came here, I hadn’t had a bath in three weeks,” said Alvin Dashiell, 40, who has been at the shelter four months. “They gave me back my self-esteem. People here are willing to help as long as I am willing to help myself.”

The 40,000-square-foot shelter, a warehouse owned by the U.S. General Services Administration, is south of Bandini Boulevard just east of the Long Beach Freeway (710). The Salvation Army gets the space rent-free.

The shelter relies on a variety of sources for its annual $450,000 budget, including the Salvation Army, the United Way, county, state and federal governments, and several private organizations.

Wilbert Freeman, the first shelter resident to graduate from the skills center, said the rules and structure helped him turn his life around. Freeman, 41, arrived at the shelter in April after a longtime drug addiction and chronic homelessness. He graduated from the skills center in August and works as an apprentice aerial cutter for a cable-splicing company.

“I never thought I would be able to do something like this,” he said. “When I came here, I was down and out. It just shows that if you try hard enough, you can do whatever you want.”