Shelter Gives Moms New Lease on Life

In a former crack house in the middle of Oxnard’s La Colonia neighborhood, women and children are struggling to break from the drugs and poverty that surround them.

Lighthouse Women’s & Children’s Shelter is their oasis. Within its blue iron gates and block walls, women learn about parenting, anger management and social graces. They read the Bible, do chores and, most important, soak up love and encouragement from the staff and each other.

“Across the street is the gang stuff, the graffiti stuff,” said program manager Pat DeWaay. “But here we’re safe.”

The Rescue Mission’s property had become a crack house while it sat unused, DeWaay said. Then mission officials took pictures of the addicts, their campfire and the needles and drugs strewn about. The officials threatened to take the photos to police if the addicts didn’t move out. They left.

The Rescue Mission Alliance gutted the house and created Lighthouse three years ago, DeWaay said. Now about 300 people have found a home in the rooms painted with butterflies and decorated with Noah’s ark wallpaper.

“This is a beautiful place to live,” said Tiffany Taylor, whose small bedroom barely holds her bed, and a bunk bed and a crib for her three children.

The 10-room house, a nonprofit shelter supported by private and corporate donations and volunteers, can accommodate 24 to 30 people at a time participating in the yearlong program. If there are empty beds, the shelter provides temporary housing for other homeless women and children. But during three days at the end of May, managers had to turn away 24 women and children.

Most of the residents are mothers with children, although some mothers are separated from their kids. All the women are recovering addicts.

“We have gals who used to buy from here” when it was a crack house, DeWaay said. They have had difficult lives from the start. “Most of my girls were out on the street by 14, 15 or 16 years old,” she added.

One resident, Alisha Ball, 29, had quit taking methamphetamines and other drugs three years ago. Then, two years ago, her daughter, who weighed only 2 pounds at birth, died. In her grief, Ball turned to sleeping pills and tried to commit suicide.

“I had so much wreckage,” said Ball, who checked into Lighthouse a year ago.

A couple of months after Ball moved in, her brother was killed. Then, in November, her dad died. But her friends at Lighthouse, rather than drugs, eased the pain.

“If I wasn’t here I probably would have been using again,” she said. “We argue and fight because we all live together, but we’re real close. There is not one of us who wouldn’t do anything for the other ones.”

Ball graduated from the Lighthouse program in June and is sending out resumes. She plans to stay for three more months, during which she is required to save her money. She is a little scared about leaving, but plans to stay in touch with her Lighthouse friends.

“As long as you stay connected to the people here, you’re not on your own,” Ball said.

For most, the biggest difference between the shelter and life outside is the rules. For two hours every weekday morning, they must attend classes ranging from 12-step recovery sessions to dealing with supervisors at work. They also learn living skills that many people take for granted, such as how to play with a baby, DeWaay said.

Most residents must work at the Rescue Mission, where they learn data entry, retail and other job skills. There are chores and curfews, which start at 7 p.m. and lengthen over time. And for the first 30 days, residents can’t leave the shelter or contact anyone outside.

Taylor, 23, couldn’t live by the rules the first time she stayed at Lighthouse two years ago, particularly the one that prohibited her from seeing the boyfriend she had just met. She sneaked out to see him several times and then, after seven months at the shelter, she left and got an apartment with him.

But the couple couldn’t afford to feed Taylor’s kids and were evicted. They lived in cheap hotel rooms for a month and in a Salvation Army shelter for three months before Taylor returned to Lighthouse in January, five months pregnant.

“The hardest thing about it is the rules, but that’s good,” said Taylor, who couldn’t see her boyfriend for the first month back at the shelter. “It is better for me. It keeps me out of trouble.”

Lighthouse emphasizes religion. A huge banner proclaiming “Jesus Is Lord” hangs across the front of the house. The women are taught what the Bible says about money management and other issues, and they must attend church every week.

“We look for clients that have bottomed out,” DeWaay said. “They say, ‘We’ve tried everything else, why not try God?’ ”

Kristie, who did not want her last name printed, said that spiritual guidance was the most important help she received at Lighthouse. She left a year ago and now works as an accountant for a housing authority.

“It gave me a sense of meaning and belonging and renewed strength that I think I lost along the way,” said Kristie, 24. “They allowed me a brand new start on life.”

DeWaay acknowledges that Lighthouse doesn’t work for everyone. One woman, who had regained custody of her child after 14 years, returned to drugs and homelessness a couple of months after graduating from the program.

Lighthouse doesn’t track its success rate, but DeWaay said she expects that most graduates will stay off drugs and the streets.