Women, Families Find a Place to Call Home

Charlie Percy is not the kind of woman neighbors expected when they protested a subsidized housing complex in Old Town.

She is the reigning Ms. Simi Valley--and a mother of five. She lived in a ritzy Westlake home until the eviction notice came last February.

And she has plans to get her family off welfare and out of the subsidized apartment they just moved into at the Stoll Community House.

“This situation knows no job level, no race level, no creed,” Percy said. “It can happen to anyone. The higher you are income-wise, it seems, the harder you fall.”

Having an apartment of their own at the new center for women in transition means an end to uncertainty for Percy and her children, ages 3 to 16.

No more dodging bill collectors looking for Percy’s former husband, now in state prison for bilking retirees of their savings in a securities scam. No more keeping up appearances while massive rent payments and allegations of physical abuse tore the family apart.

The new apartment in the “transitional living” complex means a fresh start for the family.

“We love it here, are you kidding?” said Percy, giving a recent tour of her four-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment. “It’s the first place we’ve had that’s ours. It’s just the six of us. And we’re doing everything in pink--because we can--with teddy bears, hearts and angels.”

This week, nine other women and their families will be moving into the Stoll Community House, a program run by the nonprofit group Many Mansions that provides much more than inexpensive housing and is unique in the area.

Created for women who are homeless or on the verge of homelessness, Stoll House also offers case management for each woman, plus free child care and job counseling.

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About three women applied for every vacancy at Stoll House, which officially opens Thursday. Before choosing the residents, Many Mansions and two other social service groups interviewed each woman to learn whether she was motivated to put herself on a firm financial footing within a year. Once chosen, the residents all passed drug and alcohol screenings.

The Stoll House apartments rent for a third of the woman’s income or a fixed low rate, whichever is cheaper.

For Percy, who brings home $861 a month through an embroidery business and Aid to Families With Dependent Children, rent is $265 monthly. The maximum rent for the four-bedroom apartment with views of scrub-covered hills is $437 a month.

Like Charlie Percy, most of the 10 women at the Stoll House, who range in age from 22 to 53, already work in retail, child-care or other service jobs.

By and large, they are long-term Thousand Oaks residents who lost their homes and were staying in the winter homeless shelter, a motel or with relatives and friends before the complex opened.

Many had comfortable--even affluent--lifestyles until a marriage or relationship broke up. Two were full-time, stay-at-home moms who had never worked.

“A large percentage of the calls we get requesting housing assistance are from single women,” said Mary MacLeod, the associate director of Many Mansions. “Unfortunately, it’s a pretty common pattern we see: A woman is dealing with the end of a relationship, maybe she’s been abused, and she has virtually no work history or job skills. So how does she pay for housing and pay for child care when she only makes $5 or $6 an hour? She winds up homeless.”

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That is the story of Percy’s life.

The petite blond had worked in some small jobs here and there--bar-tending and waiting tables. Percy had always embroidered team jackets and beauty pageant sashes to make spending money.

She even competed in the Ms. Simi Valley pageant, open to women from Thousand Oaks as well. She won the 1996 title; there has been no pageant since.

But her main job during her 17-year marriage was raising the children.

So when her husband was arrested in April 1996, Percy’s economic defenses were few. Some of her husband’s clients helped her pay the rent and utilities for a spell, but the money ran out about a year ago. Percy and her daughters--Paris, 16, Ashley, 13, Regan, 11, Ryann, 7, and T.J., 3--were evicted.

Caught up in legal proceedings and a messy divorce, the six shuttled from motel to rental house to motel. They exhausted their limited savings.

Percy was at her wits’ end when she learned of the Stoll House--which she calls an answer to her prayers.

Now, with a year to get her life back in order, Percy is already cold-calling athletic teams and festivals to drum up embroidery work.

With the help of Lutheran Social Services, she intends to enroll in the county’s Entrepreneur Academy to further her business. If she can’t make enough income on embroidery alone, Percy has training as an emergency medical technician to fall back on.

The complex for women is designed to fill a void in Thousand Oaks’ housing market, said Otto G. Stoll, a community activist and Many Mansions co-chairman.

“The Stoll House meets one of those invisible needs that we sense is around, but we don’t really see that it’s there,” said Stoll, for whom the facility is named. “We’ve had so many people interested . . . we probably could have filled it seven or eight times over with qualified applicants. It’s a reminder that there are this many homeless families--and more--in the Conejo Valley.”

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In image-conscious Thousand Oaks, affordable housing can be a hard sell among neighbors with property values to protect.

Before the Stoll House was built, dozens of residents signed a petition complaining that it would become a drop-in center for transients. Others said Many Mansions would use part of it to house illegal immigrants.

At the time, Many Mansions officials pointed out that it would be illegal for nonprofit groups that accept federal housing money--as the agency does--to house undocumented immigrants.

In reality, this subsidized housing is a far cry from what many would envision, said Paris Roberts, Percy’s oldest daughter.

“I don’t really know what I expected, but when I thought of low-income apartments, I guess I thought of the projects,” Paris said. “When we moved in here, it was like, ‘Whoa, wake up, wake up.’ ”

At the intersection of Hampshire and Los Robles roads, the $1.8-million Stoll Community House blends in with the surrounding bungalows--outshining many of them.

In keeping with community aesthetic standards, the apartment building is a pale peach stucco with teal accents and a red tile roof. A grassy play area with climbing toys and a slide awaits tots. A security gate protects the residents--mainly women and children--from outsiders and from violent former husbands or boyfriends.

A deferred $1-million loan from the state, plus $187,000 from Thousand Oaks’ Redevelopment Agency and a $70,000 deferred loan from county Community Development Block Grant funds paid most of the costs of land and construction for the Stoll House. Donations from the Thousand Oaks United Methodist men’s group and the Conejo Homeless Assistance Program provided another $17,000.

In addition, about 20 donors gave couches, lamps, beds or money to fully furnish the apartments.

“We’re very proud of the building, especially because of some of the nightmarish ideas some [people] in the community were projecting about the project,” said MacLeod, Many Mansions’ associate director. “But here you have this bright, beautiful building.”

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FYI

A ribbon-cutting and grand opening for the Stoll Community House are scheduled for 3 p.m. Thursday at the intersection of Hampshire and Los Robles roads. The public is welcome. Tours of the facility will follow.