Heart of the homeless

EDITOR’S NOTE: This article is the first in a two-part series on homelessness in Costa Mesa. The second half will appear next Sunday.  

It was sometime during the afternoon when I started to get really nervous.

The winter storm showed no signs of relenting. I might be outside all night.

I had planned a couple of weeks before last Friday to go homeless in Costa Mesa for a night and I couldn’t back out.

“You sure you don’t want to reschedule this?” my boss asked.

“I can’t. The homeless can’t reschedule when they’re homeless. I have no choice.”

The night before, I went over to the Salvation Army thrift store on Harbor Boulevard to get a backpack so I would look more authentically homeless.

“Honey, we’re sold out of those. This is the busy season, you know?” a clerk told me. I suppose she meant because the spring college semester had just started.

So I bought a cheap $10 backpack at Target, hoping no one would notice it was new. I picked up an emergency poncho as well, allowing myself to cheat a little bit.

I prepared as best I could. Long underwear, a sweatshirt, long-sleeve T-shirt, gloves, a knit hat, and a coat, too. I decided against bringing a sleeping bag with me as I figured it would just get soaked anyway. Better to just wander around, maybe I could find shelter in a viaduct or something.

But the rain kept coming down last Friday as I visited the Someone Cares Soup Kitchen in Costa Mesa in the afternoon to see if there was anyone dining there who I could tag along with in the evening. The volunteers introduced me to Juan.

I put my notebook away because I wanted Juan to open up. Later, I jotted down my recollection of his story, which fascinated me. They always do. I’ve done several stories over the years about the homeless, and, not surprisingly, they offer amazing tales.

God always provides

Juan slowly warmed up to me, and with an easygoing smile he told me how he ended up in California after growing up as poor as anyone could get near Mexico City. He even looked like a faded cherub, slightly overweight with big, brown eyes. He clearly enjoyed his lunch and reliving, with the wisdom of middle age, the foolish youthful enthusiasm that led him to “girls, drinking and partying” with his buddies near the border in Tijuana. They didn’t like Los Angeles. They were too young to get in the bars and the cops didn’t want them around, of course. So he ended up in Costa Mesa, where an aunt lived, and he liked it here.

Usually he can find enough work to get by, but lately it’s been slow. Still, God always provides, he said. After decades hooked on heroin — I won’t soon forget how he punctuated that confession with a gesture indicating the jabbing of a needle in his arm, something he did most every day for all those years — he prayed for help to stop and that terrible gnawing hunger for the poison stopped.

I won’t soon forget either, the sudden poignant retelling of how his longtime girlfriend Carrie overdosed. Ten years later, on Valentine’s eve I could see how it still stung. I had a friend who died of a heroin overdose. When my mother told me about it, I sobbed. He was so talented, and it was such a waste.

“She was so beautiful with blond hair,” he said, and then he was almost overcome with the grief.

The conversation shifted to his son, from another relationship, and Juan’s mood soared again as he told me with wide eyes about how his grandchildren “climb all over me” when they come to visit. Such a beautiful, almost Rockwellian image, I thought.

Juan told me he would probably stay the night at the Lighthouse church, 1885 Anaheim Ave., because it was raining. I had been told by another homeless man that the Lighthouse opens its doors on rainy nights.

Shelter from the storm?

So I drove over there and walked right in. A group of men, who I later learned were homeless people temporarily living at the church, sat at long tables and watched some sort of Biblical movie, like “The 10 Commandments.” I told one of the men that I was a reporter and asked if the pastor was available. He motioned to a back room, and that’s where I first met Ken Robison, an assistant to the Lighthouse’s Pastor Dale Fitch.

When I told Ken about my project he said I picked a heck of a night for it.

“That’s God telling you something,” he said, chuckling.

“Yeah, I think he’s telling me I’m a Cubs fan and I’ve got rotten luck.”

Ken laughed heartily. Moments later Pastor Fitch returned to the church and consulted with Ken who had checked the weather reports. They reasoned the storm was bad enough that they should open the church’s doors so anyone could sleep there overnight. I was secretly relieved and a bit ashamed. Would it be cheating to stay at the Lighthouse overnight? I vowed to also visit the end of 19th Street near the wash where many of the area’s homeless camp. It’s known as “The Jungle,” and with good reason — it’s a scary sanctuary, especially at night.

After I was done with work about 8 p.m. I drove over to the Lighthouse where I met photo editor Mark Dustin. Many of the men in the Lighthouse’s “residency program” who had eyed me with a bit of suspicion earlier welcomed me. Perhaps they had heard about my project. Ken and I decided we should make an announcement to the room about why I was there. Would anyone be interested in talking to a reporter? If they don’t want their picture taken, be sure to tell Mark. Unfortunately, but understandably, no one wanted their picture taken, but several were willing to talk to me. In fact, they were eager to talk about their experiences as they feel invisible — as if no one cared about them anymore.

Christopher is in the residency program, meaning he does some chores around the church and in exchange gets to stay there. The residents also take Bible lessons. Christopher earnestly wanted to be as helpful as possible. He started telling me how a traumatic brain injury that he couldn’t remember led him to homelessness, but Ken asked someone to tell him to back off so I could interview non-residents. It didn’t matter to me — I wanted to hear his story, but wanted to respect the rules of the house.

So Mark and I left for a moment and we walked around neighboring Lions Park. I’d heard from several homeless people and the social service agency volunteers that Lions Park is rough terrain for the homeless. There’s a history there of homeless people camping there and the cops rousting them.

Ken, later that night, told me a harrowing story of how one man got a catheter kicked deeper into his side by a cop and after they took him to the hospital “the men in suits” asked him “how much money he would like,” but the man just said he wanted the city’s “goon squad” that was assigned to “harass” the homeless to back off.

But Ken also diplomatically said that the cops were right to chase out some of the homeless because “some of them were shooting dope in front of kids and that’s not right. It’s a family park.”

We saw some cops in the park who had arrested a couple of people after pulling over the car they were in. I was a little nervous they would turn their attention to me, but they either didn’t see me, didn’t care or were too focused on the job at hand.

I thought about going down to the Jungle then but it meant I would risk not getting back to the Lighthouse before lights out, and also it would mean I’d miss a chance to interview some of the folks staying there. I also felt that getting interviews down at the Jungle would have been difficult, as I was warned the campers there are very suspicious of outsiders.

So I ended up back at the Lighthouse where a second conversation with Christopher got interrupted as Ken wanted me to talk to the “guests.” That’s what Pastor Fitch insists on calling them. Not clients, but guests, because he emphasizes the importance of treating the homeless with dignity. It’s one step toward helping them recover and get back on the path to normality.

‘Ill-prepared for life’

It was then that I met the “pro surfing legend” who had wiped out. That night she started telling me an amazing story about how she had once been a pioneering girl surfer who had been a stunt double in the movies. Her father, she said, was a famous Hollywood director who had lavish parties that drew icons like John Wayne.

Trouble is, I can find no documentation of any of it. She’s known by a nickname that I’m leery of disclosing because I don’t want to embarrass her, and I don’t think she was trying to con me. She doesn’t have that reputation, I’m told. She was so lucid and so sincere that I got the impression she may be delusional. We had to cut short the interview just as she got started telling me how she turned pro when she was 13 because it was time to separate the men from the women as they sleep in different parts of the church.

‘you also don’t have a life. It stinks.’

Ron struggled to tell me about his life and how he got on the path to homelessness. Like Godard’s jump cuts, he shifted back and forth in time, sputtering out details then, lost and frustrated, he would ask me where he was again. For long spells he was lucid, articulate, highly intelligent and aware of current events as we chatted about politics for a while. I pointed out to him how he would jump back and forth in time and he acknowledged it, pained that he couldn’t stay on track. It was like a metaphor for his life.

His family sounded highly dysfunctional and he clearly not only felt unloved, but lied to. He said he would overhear his parents arguing, his father threatening, “I’m going to tell him the truth,” and she would beg him not to. He eventually figured his father was really a stepfather. When he and his brother were 18 his parents abandoned them and moved to Arizona with their two stepbrothers and stepsister.

But pulling these details out of him was like threading a needle in sub-zero weather. He would focus in great detail on how a cop busted him for riding his bicycle on a sidewalk, which he indignantly denied. Or he would go into precise detail about how he lost his apartment in Huntington Beach, but he had trouble remembering the year or even the decade of major events in his life.

The way he tells it, he had an apartment and everything was fine, but the landlord kept jacking up the rent. One afternoon, on the last day rent was due, he had the $600, but got tied up and thought he wouldn’t make it back to the rental office in time to pay it. So he called and asked if it was OK to pay the next day. Sure, they told him. But the next day they added a fine, he didn’t have the extra money, and the next thing he knew he was evicted. He had lived there for about 10 years. He drifted after that and stayed with a friend until his friend came home one night when Ron wasn’t there and surprised burglars who killed him and a friend. The friend’s relatives kicked Ron out of the house a few months later.

He gets by as a scrounger. He goes through trash and sells scrap. But it’s not enough to pay the rent.

“I’m not a career homeless person,” he said, disdainfully explaining how some homeless people really don’t want to rejoin society.

“I heard some guy say, ‘Being homeless is great. I’ve got no bills.’ I said, ‘Yeah, you also don’t have a life.’ It stinks.”

Ron only had a eighth-grade education, but he did attend cosmetology school and really enjoyed hair dressing. He took out a student loan to do it and didn’t work for a year because he was so intent on learning the craft. He did that for about 10 years, he said.

When I ask him if someone was able to come along and give him enough money to get a place and pay his bills, what would he want to do?

“I’d like to take a vacation,” he said. “Maybe see some relatives, go fishing. I’d like to have a life. To have a family, have a normal life.”

I understood his meaning better the next day when I realized how exhausting it is to be homeless.

He says he gets some counseling and it helps to talk to someone, but I didn’t get the chance to ask where he sees the social worker. But clearly he has terrible regrets and wistfully wonders how much better things could have been if he’d had a better upbringing.

“I could have done a lot better with my life,” he said, shaking his head. “To be a junior in high school, go to a dance. I was robbed of all that stuff. I was ill-prepared for life.”

The pros and cons of staying at The Jungle

It was 10 p.m. Lights out.

Michael, one of the residents, put on a pot of coffee and cleaned up the kitchen some. Earlier, as I walked into the Lighthouse, he smiled broadly and said he recognized me from the soup kitchen and said I looked like a rock star, a kindred spirit.

Turns out, Michael was a metal-head drummer who grew up in Kalamazoo. He was laid off of his job as an inventory control manager in Fullerton in June and was homeless by August.

Michael joked that he was prepared for the outdoors because he’s part-Native American. He got a taste of both the Jungle and “The Preserve,” which is on the other side at the end of Victoria Street.

The Jungle is preferred by some of the homeless because there’s less scrutiny. There’s also a lot more pesky insects and it can get violent, Michael said.

“A lot of the homeless down there are drug addicts,” he said.

The Preserve is a lot safer, he reasoned, because it’s federal property and is patrolled more often, dissuading the roughnecks from camping there. The drawback is you have to get up earlier and get out so you can avoid the park ranger at dawn.

“It’s easier for the drug addicts to live in the Jungle because you can do whatever you want there,” Michael said.