ORANGE COUNTY PERSPECTIVE : Good News on the Home Front

Backers of a Santa Ana shelter for single homeless women and their children struck exactly the right note this week in calling the festive ceremonies opening the facility a “celebration of good news.” Orange County needs more of that type of news. The shelter has risen triumphantly over obstacles that easily might have leveled such a well-intentioned idea, the problems of red tape and the indifference or outright hostility of neighbors.

Single parents are the fastest-growing segment of the county’s homeless population. It is abysmal to be on your own and forced to sleep under a freeway or on a park bench. But it is worse to be unable to provide shelter for your children as well.

The new shelter, called Regina House, can accommodate up to seven women and 11 children. Mercy House Transitional Living Center, which will run Regina House, already operates a Santa Ana shelter for single homeless men. Mercy House was founded by Father Jerome T. Karcher, a Roman Catholic priest then serving St. Anne’s Parish in Santa Ana and now at a Costa Mesa parish.

The two bungalows required massive renovation. To its credit, the city of Santa Ana contributed $128,000 in financing and Irvine gave $47,000. HomeAid Orange County also helped with financing, and more than 100 contractors and designers donated $300,000. HomeAid is the nonprofit organization of the Orange County chapter of the Building Industry Assn. Last year it contributed more than half of the $1.5 million needed for a shelter for homeless women and children in Orange, the House of Hope, run by the Orange County Rescue Mission.

Like the House of Hope, Regina House will offer tutoring for children, counseling and referrals for job training. Both facilities are designed to help the women and their children move into apartments after several months. Both shelters also benefited from neighbors thankfully able to rise above the “not in my back yard” syndrome. They realized that these are not people who are homeless because they are lazy. These are single mothers and their children who deserve temporary help.

The county’s homeless population is estimated at 12,000, of whom from 3,600 to 6,000 are children. The House of Hope and Regina House can shelter 36 children, so much more needs to be done. HomeAid has done a good job in building shelter for the homeless in the county. Regina House is a fine example of a public-private partnership working to solve one of society’s pressing problems.