Battered Women Find a Haven at ‘Laura’s House’ : Social issues: Condo-turned-shelter in San Clemente gives counseling and ‘breathing room’ to victims of domestic violence.

One day last week, a penniless woman named Jane left her abusive husband in Los Angeles, boarded an Amtrak train and stepped out at the San Juan Capistrano depot because it looked so peaceful.

Before long, she found Laura’s House, a San Clemente shelter for battered women that opened just last month and the area’s only shelter for victims of domestic violence. Laura’s House was jammed, but workers there found her another shelter farther south.

“She got a little breathing room and some hope,” said Executive Director Sandy Candello.

Over the past three years, as Candello and about 100 volunteers worked one bake sale at a time to raise the down payment for a condominium, some questioned the need for a shelter in affluent South County and whether it would be supported by local residents.

Just five weeks after opening, Candello smiles and recites the statistics.

“We’ve had 13 women and 12 children sheltered; we received a $420,000 grant from the state,” she said. “I think we’ve answered all the questions about whether there’s a need here in South County.”

The condo-turned-shelter is filled with testimony as to how local residents feel about Laura’s House.

New beige carpeting covers the floor. Barely used pastel sofas, a big-screen television and other amenities have all been donated.

A local florist sends flowers once a week and the neighborhood baker sets aside large boxes of fresh muffins. On the communal kitchen table, a big metal bowl is heaped with oranges, apples and pears bought with donations.

For the women who need Laura’s House, often from affluent South County backgrounds who walk in the door expecting shelters to resemble flophouses, the warmth and attractiveness of Laura’s House provide some semblance of normalcy.

“I thought it would look, like, dark and ugly,” said Kris, who came to the crisis shelter last month. “In the shape I was in, considering the nice home I came from, I don’t know if I could’ve taken it if this place had been dingy.”

The day before, when most of the other women had returned from getting restraining orders against their husbands and boyfriends and were feeling bad, Kris was feeling good.

But today, the memories and feelings she suppressed during more than 25 years of an abusive marriage kept flowing like the tears streaming down her face.

“Sometimes, I can’t believe that I’m sitting here in a shelter,” she said in anguished tones. “I’m from Middle America. I left the Mercedes, the ranch home.

“But I’m still amazed at the terror and fear that I lived under there. It ended when he was chasing me around the back yard, hitting me. I told him, ‘You’re not supposed to be doing this. . . . Don’t.’

“Then all of a sudden, I was like a bird sitting on a wire, watching it happen, and I thought, ‘This is a ridiculous way to live,’ ” she said.

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What Kris and the other Laura’s House residents have found is a haven. At the shelter, women are comforted, given counseling and offered help finding jobs, a place to work, setting up a new life. The maximum stay is 45 days.

Structure and order are in place at Laura’s House. For the first 72 hours, there’s a “cooling off” period, which means no contact is allowed with anyone on the outside.

Then there are counseling sessions and other integration into the group life, which mean everyone takes turns cleaning and cooking.

To the residents, it feels structured. But organizers putting the brand-new shelter together feel like they’ve been staying one step ahead of chaos.

The first group moving into the three-bedroom condominium included eight children from toddlers to teens.

“You wouldn’t believe the noise,” said Veta Stock, the shelter director. “We’re dealing with a new building, new staff--we’re still putting screens on the doors. Some weeks I’ve worked 60 to 70 hours a week.”

Two days after it opened, the shelter was full. And Laura’s House officials were busy planning for the next shelter, which will be more like a halfway house where women can stay indefinitely while they get job training.

“I really want to do this work,” Stock said. “To be able to put women in a safe environment where they can start healing.”

For Maria and her two children, ages 3 and 14, anything would be safer than living with her alcoholic husband.

“He was great as long as the booze wasn’t there,” she said quietly. “When he got drunk, he got angry and mean. He was drunk a lot.”

For Maria, Kris and other shelter residents, the future is full of fear and hope. It means an upheaval from their past material lives.

“I’m afraid, I’m sad, I’m going to have to rebuild my whole life,” Kris said. “But I’ll have a support system [through Laura’s House] and a part-time job and a room when I leave here.”

Maria spent the day before at welfare offices, where workers “were really very nice. They took me aside and showed me everything that I qualified for.”

“This shelter was my plan of last resort, the last place I wanted to be,” she said. “I once had everything, but I tell you, anything is better than the craziness I’ve lived through.”