No room for a normal childhood at San Bernardino motel

A young boy retrieves a ball in the empty pool at the Country Inn.

Feeling ill, Eddie Martinez lies on the floor at the Country Inn. The San Bernardino motel is as close to a home as he’s had since his brief stint in the middle class ended when he was 6 and the family lived in Oregon.

When Eddie Martinez’s mother, Noreen Gutierrez, was in jail on a probation violation, he stayed with her 24-year-old boyfriend, above, who was mostly strung out on the shards of crystal meth he smoked in the bathroom.

SAN BERNARDINO, CA - NOVEMBER 25, 2014: The day after Thanksgiving, with turkey blood running off the filthy countertop, Vanessa Padilla, 30, right, is drunk and attempts to clean a turkey, in her motel room at the Country Inn, in San Bernardino, November 25, 2015. Vanessa and her four children live motel room. (Francine Orr/ Los Angeles Times)  (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times)

A young boy hangs out with Breanna and Eddie in Breanna’s room at the Country Inn.

Eddie Martinez, 14, stands outside his room at the Country Inn in San Bernardino. With his mother in jail, Eddie felt adrift in a storm, with no search party looking for him.

Vanessa Padilla, 30, talks with San Bernardino police officers in the Country Inn parking lot after her daughter Breanna, 12, failed to come home after school. She fears she is missing.

In tears, Vanessa Padilla pulls her youngest daughter into their motel room. Her older daughter Breanna was missing after she didn’t come home from school.

Breanna Melendez, 12, gets a hug in the Country Inn parking lot after she was found at a nearby park. Her mother, Vanessa Padilla, left, reported her missing after she didn’t come home from school.

A young girl who lives at the Country Inn with her family escapes the drama around her as she does her math homework against a broken window.

Barefoot and holding her blanket, a young girl runs in and out of her room at the Country Inn.

A couple and their baby were evicted from the motel for not paying their bill.

Using a rake, manager Sam Maharaj, left, cleans as a renter sits on the floor, rocking back and forth in her motel room at the Country Inn.

This afternoon, Sam Maharaj will evict a couple and their 4-month-old baby for not paying their bill.

Sam Maharaj, right, manager of the Country Inn, evicts a couple and their baby boy.

A woman cries outside Room 105 at the Country Inn. She is being evicted, along with her husband and 4-month-old son.

A child watches motel manager Sam Maharaj clean a room at the Country Inn.

A boy plays with a cockroach he calls his pet “turtle,” just outside his room at the Country Inn.

Wearing a mask, a young boy watches from the balcony at the Country Inn.

Children play in the parking lot at the Country Inn.

A child plays in a plastic bin while his mother cleans the motel room.

A child rides past her father at the Country Inn.

A man uses a pickax to remove a metal pole from the concrete next to the Country Inn.

A man plays with Grumpy the dog in the parking lot of the Country Inn.

A crying child tosses herself on the ground next to a broken metal box spring outside their room at the Country Inn.

Motel manager Sam Maharaj, buys the kids pizza after they helped clean up the parking lot at the Country Inn.

Children play on the steps at the Country Inn.