Homeless once, she’s living a life with hope
Dog biscuits on the dresser, Nativity scene in the window, stacked boxes of unfinished art projects stuffed under a table.
It’s cramped but it’s home, Lee Sevilla says, sitting on a bed that takes up half the space she shares with Sandy, her Lhasa apso. Sure, it’s nothing but a Motel 6 off Interstate 5 in Orange County. But consider the advantages:
Daily maid service. No need to buy furniture. No utility bills.
And it’s positively palatial compared to where Sevilla lived for 10 long, challenging years.
“This definitely beats the car,” she says.
Every once in a while I hear from readers wondering what ever happened to Sevilla, who used to begin her days parked at the water’s edge in Playa del Rey to write in her journal and gaze across the ocean for hope and inspiration.
Sevilla’s troubles began when her marriage fell apart in Illinois and she started an interior design business while caring for her three children. Sevilla quickly got in over her head, ignored an attorney who recommended bankruptcy and dug an even deeper hole.
She was briefly in jail for a tax debt and suffered a heart attack behind bars before being released when the state of Illinois decided to drop what her attorney called a draconian prosecution.
Her children offered help, but pride and fierce independence kept Sevilla from imposing on them. Frail, embarrassed, broke and reluctant to apply for federal assistance for fear of being dragged back to prison, she ended up in her car.
She was sure it would be a temporary thing. But low-paying jobs and outrageous real estate prices turned the weeks into months and then years.
In her mid-70s, Sevilla would sleep in her car at a city park in El Segundo, use the restroom at a nearby Chevron station, work on pencil sketches of pets and wildlife at the public library and check apartment listings that never worked out.
Too expensive. No dogs allowed. Too many stairs to climb.
As the years went by, Sevilla and her dog huddled in a Dodge Neon as the evening fog rolled in, drifting to sleep on dreams of a better break.
My first column about Sevilla brought her letters of support, donations and commissions for sketches. People sent photos of pets and asked for her to make cards and stationery, and Sevilla, who’d always wanted to be an artist, counted herself lucky. The letters arrived by the hundreds at the Playa del Rey post office after the column ran in other newspapers.
“I got letters all the way from Japan, Alaska and Florida,” Sevilla says.
Along with her Social Security checks, she suddenly had enough money to pay for longer and longer weekends at the Motel 6, where she became such a regular that the manager offered her a special rate.
She looked forward to her motel stays but kept staying in the car, too, to save money. Then came last winter’s cold spell. She was chilled to the bone every time she slid back into the driver’s seat for a shivering night of shut-eye.
It was Christmas, a year ago, when she finally said enough.
“I’ve been in here ever since.”
Sevilla recently lost her job as a receptionist when a small El Segundo company downsized, but her days are full. She walks Sandy at a park in Woodbridge twice daily, goes to church regularly, visits El Segundo once a week and meets with friends at the public library there.
And she is still going through a mountain of mail.
Sevilla passes on her apologies to those who are still waiting for sketches of their pets, especially to those who made down payments. But she takes the time to do a professional job, and she’s slowed down quite a bit. Often, she feels as though she can’t catch her breath.
She estimates there are still about 200 orders she hasn’t gotten to. When I visited, she was working on greeting cards for a Ms. Joan Morris of Sarasota, Fla., who sent a photo of her two cats.
“I’ve still got a group of about 10 to 12 people who send me somewhere between $20 and $180 a month,” says Sevilla. “There’s a couple in Whittier that sends even more for Christmas and Easter, and a company in Las Vegas that sends $20 every month. I write back to people and tell them how Sandy and I are doing, and they love that.”
Ideally, she says, she’ll find a real apartment one day. She still checks the listings but can’t find a one-bedroom in a relatively safe area for the $1,100 she pays monthly at Motel 6.
It got very depressing last summer, she admits. With no kitchen at the motel, making sandwiches for dinner and refilling the small ice chest became tedious chores. And it cost her a good chunk of savings when her loyal companion Sandy needed surgery for a cancerous growth.
But Sevilla reads the news of the world every day and it lends some perspective.
“You know, if you’ve got a roof over your head, you’re really OK. We are doing just great, and I’m so grateful. I really am.”
Sevilla had made a pot of Folger’s for my visit. There was a box of Wheat Thins by the dresser, a NOEL sign in the window and a book called “Christmas In My Heart” on a small table.
“Every day in my journal,” she said, “I write thanks to God that I don’t live in that car any more.”
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