Making a Difference in Your Community : Cottage Gives Women Respite From Streets

In front of a small yellow house on Sylvan Street in Van Nuys, two shopping carts stand in dirt that is trying to be grass. In one, neatly folded pink, white and red clothing show through metal slats. In the other, two cats sleep in a pet carrier and in an open cardboard box.

The cats wait in front of this yellow building five days a week while their owner goes in for food, clothes, showers and stability.

“I like this place,” said Mary Lou, whose blond curls and cowlicks make a cherubic frame for a face that seems decades older than its 36 years. “I’d be lost without this place.”

For people such as Mary Lou, who spends nights in a car lot, and for other homeless women, the Women’s Care Cottage in Van Nuys is a place to call home during the day. It’s a place to shower, to eat, to wash and dry clothes and to rebuild lives.

The cottage keeps its doors open weekdays 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. through the work of two paid workers and 15 volunteers.

“We couldn’t run the place without volunteers,” said Pam Haymond, one of two case managers at the cottage. “It would be impossible.”

The cottage helps homeless women--with or without children--find shelter, education, medical care and government assistance if they are eligible. The women can use a telephone and receive mail. The organization has a separate facility in North Hollywood where women and children can live for up to 60 days.

Some are newly homeless, temporarily down on their luck. Others, the workers say, probably will live out their lives on the street.

“Some people we’ll see a hundred times, some we’ll see only once,” Haymond said.

In all, the cottage gets about 6,000 visits a year from probably 1,000 homeless women and children, said Haymond.

“Which is pretty amazing for this little, tiny, 800-square-foot building,” she added.

The cottage also offers HIV testing, parenting classes, support groups for the homeless and those who’ve recently found homes, “so they don’t end up homeless again,” said case manager Donna Cox.

In the kitchen, Jan Capin is dishing out plates of lasagna. And she’s running out.

“We’re running out of foooooo-ooood,” she says softly to herself as two children come in with their mother.

When four more children come in, Capin pulls out a case of hot dogs.

The Northridge woman volunteered in May after retiring from a bookkeeping job. For Capin, 55, the cottage has been an education.

“At first I was surprised. I guess I’m sheltered in the fact that I don’t know what goes on. I see people walking with pushcarts but you never associate with them for some reason,” she said. “Most of them are so sweet and nice that you’d never know they were homeless.”

She remembers one young woman, a prostitute who had been involved in gangs since she was a child, who had medical problems she hadn’t cared for and who was in and out of the court system.

“I lived in my cozy little house and I don’t know these things go on and here I am feeding her lunch, hearing her pain and there’s nothing I can do about it.”

For Tanya Hahni, 21, a social work major, her six months volunteering at the cottage have been an invaluable lesson.

“My first day I went home and said, ‘I can’t do this, it’s so depressing. None of these people have homes,’ ” she said.

But as she got to know the cottage’s clients, her attitude changed.

“Now you see people as people and that’s less depressing,” she said. “I’ve been able to see them as people more than statistics.”

Outside, Mary Lou shows a visitor her two plump, yawning cats.

“I’ve brought a lot of women here already. I’m all over, so if I see them, if they need help . . .” she said, trailing off. “I brought Sandy here.” She looks over her shoulder to the owner of the other shopping cart, who is sitting on the porch of the yellow house reading Architectural Digest.

To volunteer at the Women’s Care Cottage, call 818-786-7830.