Service on the Streets : SPIN Volunteers Reach Out to the Homeless, Needy With Food, Clothing

Jan Hart looks troubled as she shuffles through debris inside the van. She is frantically looking for a small tin box containing the ignition key. After a few seconds of panic, she finds the box and snatches the key.

“I put the key in this box for safekeeping,” she says with a chuckle. She starts the engine, puts the blue mini-van--filled with 190 brown-bag lunches--in reverse, backs out of the parking lot at Our Lady Queen of Angels Church in Corona del Mar and heads north to feed the homeless.

Thursday is the day when the volunteers of Newport Beach-based SPIN (Serving People in Need) visit Santa Ana--not the part that borders on trendy South Coast Plaza, but the dark downtown streets where broken-down cars serve as homes.

As part of SPIN’s Street Services Program, a group of about a dozen volunteers prepares lunches of sandwiches, fruit and a drink and distributes them to the homeless at three Santa Ana locations.

Driver Hart, 58, lives in Tustin and has been involved with SPIN for two years. Like many of the county’s 12,000 homeless, she was laid off from a job.

“I have always volunteered and so has my family,” she says. “I have the time.”

Hart decided to volunteer because “it seemed there were a lot of agencies for a lot of other (concerns), but not for the homeless in Orange County.

“It’s nice to have the feeling that you’re doing something good. It gives you an awareness of other people and how fortunate we are.”

* SPIN was founded in 1987 by Orange County businessman Sam Boyce and a handful of concerned citizens. Incorporated in 1989, the nonprofit organization is funded predominantly through grants, private donations and fund-raising events.

SPIN has 120 active volunteers. Within a five-year period its volunteers have distributed more than 120,400 meals, hygiene kits, blankets and jackets; within three years 468 people have participated in its housing program.

The group started out having an “interest in the homeless and what was happening (with them),” said Jean Wegener, executive director, in an interview. With the homeless population growing in Orange County, SPIN members felt that not enough was being done.

Boyce and members began walking the streets passing out food and blankets and talking to the homeless, trying to learn of their circumstances and what they needed to get back on their feet. This was the beginning of SPIN’s Street Services Program.

“Some of the answers were ‘winning the lottery,’ ” Wegener said with a smile. “But some answers really made sense.”

From that spawned two SPIN programs. One, for substance abuses, provides money for room and board for a month in a recovery home. The other helps finance permanent housing for families with children who are living in shelters.

With Southern California’s sluggish economy and high unemployment, SPIN has found a new clientele. Although many people “are not yet to the point of living on the street,” more people are coming into SPIN’s Newport Beach office for assistance, Wegener said.

“We see the traditional low-end paid worker that had been laid-off because companies have closed or business is slow,” Wegener said.

“We used to keep no food in the office, but now we keep a substantial number of canned goods, hygiene supplies and cereals to pass out to (needy) people who come through the door.”

Wegener said many lost jobs and homes after being overextended with home equity loans and second mortgages.

“Maybe people are hanging on to an apartment now,” she said. “But they are just barely making it and have nothing extra.”

* Keith Geffen, a 19-year-old Orange Coast College student, and Angela Thomas, a 28-year-old Irvine Valley College student, are along for the ride to help with deliveries. They both have been volunteering for SPIN for six months.

“I really don’t have any spare time,” says Geffen, who lives within walking distance of Our Lady Queen of Angels church. “I have my school, homework and volunteering.”

Thomas, who lives in Irvine but grew up in Kansas, says she was uncomfortable delivering the meals at first: “I was afraid. I didn’t know what to expect. I didn’t know how (the homeless) were going to react, but now it doesn’t bother me at all.”

She says the volunteers have developed relationships with the homeless:

“It’s more about them getting the lunch. They know all of us. We had one girl working for us named Gina and she was out sick. They were all really worried, asking, ‘Where’s Gina? What’s wrong?’ and when she returned to work they all said, ‘We missed you! Are you OK.?’ ”

“And we notice when one of (the homeless) is missing,” Hart says. “We haven’t seen ‘Bushwhacker’ in a while.”

The volunteers do not know most of the homeless by their real names. Either they are known by a street name or the volunteers themselves use a name to identify them.

“(Bushwhacker) is a homeless man who takes care of an older man in his 80s named Joseph,” Hart says. “Joseph has his good days and his bad days so everybody has to watch out for him.”

*

The van makes its way through the crowded streets of Santa Ana, finally arriving at the Salvation Army on 3rd Street.

“It’s a small crowd tonight,” Hart says.

Geffen says that generally on the first Thursday of the month, there are fewer people because most have received their welfare checks.

The three volunteers spring from the van and begin passing out the lunch bags.

“God bless you,” a homeless man says.

Thomas grabs a bag of black socks from the van and starts passing them out.

“Sometimes (through donations) we get extra stuff to give out,” she says.

One man asks for white socks, explaining that the black don’t match his white tennis shoes. When Thomas tells him that only black is available, he reluctantly accepts them.

Hart later explained that most homeless people are very proud, and it is a misconception that they are all dirty.

“They want to look good,” she said. “Especially if they are out looking for a job. This is why the hygiene kits are so popular. Most like to be clean.”

*

As the van approaches the second stop at the Civic Center on Ross Street, an orderly line of about 100 people cheers. The Civic Center has the largest population of homeless in the city.

A woman with a worn leathery face and one tooth to her smile waves to the van as it pulls up to the curb.

“We call her Miss America,” Hart says. “She’s always the first one in line.”

Because of the large number of people, the volunteers decide to first pass out numbered chits which can be exchanged for the lunches. This ensures that only one lunch is given per person.

The third stop is the state welfare office on Walnut Street, across from the Orange County Rescue Mission.

One man asks if they have any toothbrushes. Luckily, on this night the volunteers are carrying a few extra hygiene items.

Hart says that with winter approaching, many homeless will need jackets and blankets.

Hart has made one man in particular her project this week. “He is a very big man, who will need a very big jacket,” she says. “We have people donate clothes to us, but finding a jacket his size is going to be hard.”

Because the turnout was low at this stop and there are a few extra meals, the volunteers decide to go back to the first stop at the Salvation Army, where they pass them out.

Two men who recognize the van cross the street to see if there is any more food.

“Sorry, we don’t have any more,” says Geffen.

With a look of disappointment, the men walk away.

“Wait!” a homeless woman shouts. She walks over to her belongings stacked in a corner and hands the men one sandwich.

“This is all I have,” she says. One of the men takes the sandwich and tries to give it to the other. They pass it back and forth a couple of times, until they decide to share it.

“I love it when I see this happen,” Thomas says. “It renews your faith in mankind. It makes this whole thing worth while when they do something like that.”