Students Pitch In to Help Family Living in One Room

When students at Heritage Oak Private School in Yorba Linda heard about a Santa Ana family living in a garage, they wanted to help.

But even as they started a food and clothing drive, the students learned the family’s situation had worsened.

Following the media attention that first alerted the students to the plight of the family of Paola Chaparro, including her husband and five children, the family was evicted from their 400-square-foot, unheated room in a garage.

They are now staying in a single bedroom in another home but are struggling to find a better place.

The school and others have stepped forward to do what they can for the family, which survives on potatoes, ramen noodles and handouts.

Greg Cygan, husband of the school’s executive director, said several parents have asked what they can do to help.

He has offered to put his own money and other donations toward helping the family find a new home.

“We do canned food drives, but we have never done something to help a family,” Cygan said. “It’s much more relevant.”

He said he was touched by The Times’ story on the family because he has six children and “could not imagine the challenges of raising them in a garage.”

After other news media picked up Chaparro’s story, her landlords feared they would be cited for renting the garage illegally.

The single bedroom the family now rents costs $400 a month.

Catholic Charities gave the family cash for the first month’s rent of the room, boxes of food, a turkey and gifts for Christmas, said Lupe Savastano, outreach program director.

The organization is also providing the family with supermarket certificates to keep them fed through this weekend. Additional help may come next week, she said.

“It is very nice that so many people have been interested in what we are going through,” Chaparro said. “We are hoping we can find housing again and get on our feet.”

But that’s a problem Savastano and others have not been able to solve.

“What we really need now is a place where they can live,” Savastano said. “They have no credit and have no credit history. We need to find someone . . . who is willing to take them in with first month, last month [rent] and security [deposit], and we will need financial help to get them into the place.”

Chaparro also has an ailment that prevents her blood from coagulating, but she cannot afford needed drugs.

Several medical facilities were unable to provide free treatment and medications, said Miriam Gonzalez at the Maternal Outreach and Management System (MOMS), a nonprofit, community-based organization that helps low-income mothers.

Chaparro’s husband earns about $300 a week working in the stockroom at an auto parts store. Chaparro’s condition makes it difficult for her to work full time, but she collects bottles and works some weekend days at a hotel.

The children--ages 3, 5, 10, 14 and 15--wear donated clothes. Before recent donations, the younger children’s toys all fit into a single plastic supermarket bag.

The story has resonated as far away as Miami, where Hugo “El Gordo” Cadalago, a deejay at Spanish-language Radio Unica, told his listeners about Chaparro’s plight.

The station has turned away offers of money for the family because it does not want to handle cash.

But Ruben Bermejo, El Gordo’s Los Angeles representative, said he has received a bicycle, a Christmas tree with lights, clothes, toys and other donations for the family.

Bermejo has also joined the hunt for permanent housing for the family.

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To help the Chaparro family, call Catholic Charities Outreach at (714) 668-1130.