12 Mothers From Shelter Pampered With Makeovers

Twelve formerly homeless mothers were greeted by a whirlwind of blow dryers, hair spray and makeup Wednesday when MainPlace/Santa Ana mall treated them to an early Mother’s Day gift.

A team of 30 hair stylists, makeup artists and manicurists from the Allen Edwards Collections salon descended on the women like a swarm of worker bees, trimming, combing, dabbing and polishing until the women emerged with new, glamorous look two hours later.

For these mothers, who live with their children at the Orange County Rescue Mission’s House of Hope in Orange, it was a rare day of leisure and luxury.

“I feel so pampered and spoiled,” said Tammy, 35, who asked that her last name not be used. “The House of Hope has been so wonderful. They pick you up, dust you off, and have you look in the mirror until you can say, ‘I’m beautiful.’ ”

The privately funded, $3.5-million shelter for women opened in 1994 and houses as many as 20 families at a time, said Lisa Fujimoto, spokeswoman for the Orange County Rescue Mission. Prospective residents go through a rigid application and interview process, and are required to give up all forms of public assistance. The average stay is 12 to 18 months, during which the women go through vocational training and parent education, Fujimoto said.

“The goal isn’t to just give them a place to live for a while,” she said. “It’s to really give them the skills to make it on their own once they leave. So far, we have had a 90% success rate.”

Of the 15,000 homeless people in Orange County, Fujimoto said, half are women and children and 4,000 are under the age of 6. Most mothers at the House of Hope have survived domestic abuse or drug addiction.

Tammy had a 6-year-old daughter and was two months’ pregnant when her husband disappeared. It was her third failed relationship, and she felt she had hit bottom.

“My first husband treated me like a bean bag. The second one placed me on an altar and then tossed me aside. The next one abused me emotionally. I chose to go from relationship to relationship until there was nothing left of me,” she said.

After three years at the House of Hope, Tammy is a preschool teacher and will move out later this month.

“I had never really been proud of myself until I got to the House of Hope,” she said.