Goodbye Motel, Hello House

Marcos and Yvonne Morales were living with their five children--ages 4 months to 8 years--in a single motel room where a hot plate and an ice chest were the sum total of their kitchen.

Thanks to a program run by Orange County Rescue Mission, the couple have taken occupancy of a three-bedroom house in Buena Park.

On Saturday they will be among the first 50 families to graduate from the program. The event will commemorate their move to permanent housing from what one social service agency calls Orange County’s skid row.

The rescue mission “asked us to work on ourselves,” said Yvonne, 28. “And we did. If we knew then what we know now, we probably wouldn’t have” had to live in motels.

The program, possibly unique in the country, brings social services to motels where the working poor often end up because they cannot come up with first and last months’ rent and security deposits for apartments.

“This is where our skid row is in Orange County,” said Jim Palmer, executive director of the mission.

Stymied when it comes to building new shelters--communities balk at having them--Orange County social service agencies are looking for other ways to house the homeless.

A county report counted 19,740 homeless people in 2001 but only 2,100 shelter beds. The program, Strong Beginnings, was developed with $1.1 million in Proposition 10 funds and hopes to get private money to continue after the current funding ends this year.

Proposition 10, passed by state voters in 1998, levied a 50-cents-per-pack tax on cigarettes to fund child development programs.

Michael Stoops, director of community organizing at the National Coalition for the Homeless in Washington, D.C., said he is unaware of any other program in the United States that brings social services to motels.

“There are not enough shelters in this country. Agencies have no place to put people, and they end up in motels. But in motels, they do not get better.... This is a model program that other communities should emulate,” he said.

Orange County Rescue Mission counselors meet with motel families to help them find transportation and child care and establish credit. Those issues often are barriers to permanent housing.

The Moraleses say the program helped them make choices that benefit the family, instead of picking what’s best for the moment. They are trying to budget, Yvonne is interviewing for jobs and they might leave Orange County for a more affordable area.

The couple, raised in Orange County, lived in four motels and even their van for more than a year. Marcos Morales had lost his job; they lived with Yvonne’s mother but left because the quarters were so cramped. In the motels, their children’s grades suffered, and they were cranky about constant moves.

Social workers pushed the couple to get rental subsidies from the Orange County Housing Authority and apply to county welfare for additional aid. The mission paid part of the deposit and even got cleaners to fix up the house that the couple rents.

The program also helped Robin Peter, 40, get custody of her daughter from foster care and establish credit.

Peter, a recovering alcoholic, lived in motels for six months after leaving a recovery house. She had no credit and no money.

Peter now lives with her two children, 18 and 15, in an Anaheim apartment. She works at an agency that helps parents regain custody of their children.

Although the participants are grateful, they say the rules of the program are tough. The legwork to find apartments and car repair estimates is challenging for someone who has never done it.

Of the first 57 families participating, seven failed to “graduate” because they could not meet expectations, such as attending mandatory credit counseling.

Even those who make it could be back to the motels, said Karen Roper, county homeless coordinator. Recidivism is high among working families whose $8-an-hour wages fall far short of paying the county’s high rents.

Even so, those who made it through Strong Beginnings feel as though it put them on a new life course.

Marcos Morales, 33, is thinking about how to improve his new rental’s backyard.

“This is my first house. I’m jazzed about it,” Morales said. “I don’t want to lose it. I will do everything I can to keep it.”