For Mother and Child, a Home for Christmas

A homeless and single mother at 24, Shelly Foster has never had her own place.

She has lived with family and a now-former boyfriend. In June, she fled Las Vegas to Orange County, with two boxes of belongings and a baby on the way.

Soon she will have more room than she could ever imagine at this stage in life.

By Christmas, Foster plans to move with newborn daughter Kayla to a one-bedroom apartment furnished with an electric range and oven, refrigerator, couch, bed, carpet, a crib, art reproductions and baby toys. They will have 450 square feet to themselves.

The family of two will become the first tenants in a new apartment building here for homeless women and their babies. The five-unit complex is an extension of Precious Life Shelter on Reagan Street, which some locals call Love Street for its cluster of charities.

“It’s exciting” but overwhelming, said Foster, who will live in Precious Life’s shelter until city inspectors give the new building final approval. “I’ve never had a chance to do it on my own before. This will help me see if I can do it.”

Precious Life with partners HomeAid Orange County and Warmington Homes in Costa Mesa dedicated the 4,950-square-foot building on Friday with a luncheon attended by boosters, volunteers and elected officials.

So far, Foster is the only approved tenant. Two more shelter residents expecting babies by January may be the next residents.

Precious Life will offer the efficiency apartments to women until their babies are 1 year old. Tenants will come from Precious Life’s transitional shelter for homeless and pregnant women, which allows women to stay for two months after they deliver. The apartments and shelter combined will provide 21 beds.

Foster will pay about $250 a month in rent, plus the electricity and phone bills. She works at a delicatessen and receives federal Aid to Families with Dependent Children.

“With getting help from AFDC and my job, I make enough to make it,” she said. “I came here with nothing. Now I’ve got so much stuff I don’t know what to do with it.”

Precious Life requires its tenants to seek education and employment.

“They have to either be employed, in job training or school,” said Theresa Murphy, executive director of the shelter. “It’s giving them a full-time commitment to some kind of program that makes them self-sufficient. What we want them to be able to do is move out of our program and into affordable housing, not just from program to program.”

The two-story apartment complex cost $100,000; most of the building materials, furniture and labor were donated. Without all of the donations, Murphy said, the project would have cost $300,000.

This is HomeAid’s 26th homeless shelter in Orange County since it started building and refurbishing the facilities in 1989.

With raindrops beginning to fall Friday, Steve Hester, a vice president with Warmington Homes and a HomeAid volunteer, noted that more beds are needed as winter storms approach.

“Because of this shelter, five more women will have a dry home and a safe place to be,” he said.