For Homeless Shelter Alumni, a Warm Reunion in the Snow

It was a reunion that Gabriele Schickentanz never expected--because there are usually no homecomings for those who have been homeless.

So there was reason to celebrate as the 36-year-old Long Beach mother returned during the weekend to a Los Angeles shelter for homeless families, the temporary home she credits for giving her a new life.

The 5-year-old Family Together shelter invited its alumni to a backyard snow party aimed at giving them a pat on the back--and giving current shelter residents a shot in the arm.

The Union Rescue Mission operates the shelter at a 75-year-old bungalow court in the Mid-City area. There, families who have resorted to sleeping in cars, Skid Row hotels and rundown suburban motels are taught ways of leading productive lives.

Saturday’s reunion drew 14 of the 38 families who have spent seven-month stints in the trim bungalows.

“Sad to say, I’d probably be on the street right now if I hadn’t come here,” Schickentanz said as she watched her son Nicholas, 12, toss snowballs with other children frolicking on a lawn covered with shaved ice. “It’s a tough world out there. It took me a long time to find that out.”

A battering victim who for a time used drugs, Schickentanz said she and her son were living in a dingy Long Beach motel before they found temporary refuge in an emergency shelter. Officials at the shelter found them an opening at Family Together.

There, she said, she learned new parenting skills, money management techniques and ways to better communicate with others. She also learned how to read and write. “I have a driver’s license for the first time,” she said. “I passed the test!”

Five families stay at the shelter at one time. Those living there nodded knowingly as Schickentanz acknowledged her initial difficulty in “following the rules and regulations.”

And they listened closely as she described the payoff--an apartment in Downey that is a stable home for her son, and a fledgling career as a computer operator for herself.

Said current shelter resident Paula Sheppard, a 35-year-old mother of three: “Before we came here we were in a situation with no future. I didn’t have the strength I needed.”

Jan McDougall, a Union Rescue Mission worker who helped launch Family Together in 1990, said the bungalows previously housed a rehabilitation center for men.

“But we found there were so many women and children out there who needed help. There were families that still had issues of parenting and budgeting and family values that were unresolved,” McDougall said.

The project’s $160,000 annual budget is covered by donations to the mission.

Those selected to live at the shelter must agree to rules such as a 10 p.m. curfew. They must also be free of drug or alcohol addiction. “Intact families”--those with fathers present--are allowed, but most of the shelter families are single mothers and their children.

Shelter director Georgia Grimes said more than 90% of the alumni have become self-supporting.

As snowballs were tossed by youngsters on Saturday, their mothers threw their arms around each other. “You remember me? I was here last year!” exclaimed one woman who is now on her own.

Schickentanz said she was excited when she moved into her own place. But she remembers crying the first night because she missed the friendships she had developed at the shelter.

“It was neat to come back today and get that hug,” she said. “You can’t describe it. I guess I just never knew what love is before.”