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# Getting off the street, heading in New Directions
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/getting-off-the-street-heading-in-new-directions/
- Published: 2004-10-06T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T05:15:53.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: Opinion, Santa Monica, #archive-import, Homeless, Homelessness

*By KELLY HAYES-RAITT*

“Home” is such a transient concept, especially here at our country’s western fringes. But do we have to “take in” the West Coast’s version of our tired, our hungry, our poor? Do we have to tolerate people who seem to have dropped so far out of our American dream that they repulse us, scare us, shame us?

I was surprised recently when Sylvia Renee Banton told me she had chosen homelessness. A passionate, articulate, driven woman of relative privilege, Banton had given up her supportive family, her successful military career — even her two children — to pursue the drug addiction that had insidiously infiltrated every aspect of her life.

Her story is no “there-by-the-grace-of- God-go-I.” Instead, it is one of tolerance, patience and willingness to accept that even the least healthy among us deserve, in Banton’s words, “a chance to hope.”

“I didn’t have an appetite — I only fed my habit,” Banton said of the weight loss resulting from her drug and alcohol addictions. For 10 years, she lived on Skid Row, hustling Walkman batteries, making just enough money to land her in a cheap hotel for a shower and a fix. She refused free meals, feeling they were for people with no other options.

“I was there by choice,” she said. “I could always go home. My parents never closed their doors to me.”

Banton is no aimless youngster. She is 49, newly sober, with a 20-year Air Force career as a government accountant before that.

“I had a degree, I had a family, I had friends, I worked every day … I grew up in a family where my parents worked hard to get where they were,” Banton said. “All of us went through school and have degrees. I really can’t tell you what happened.

“The drug part was recreational on the weekends in the beginning,” she added. “I don’t know where it went bad. Drugs and alcohol became a way of life. I had to supply myself on a 24-hour basis. Drugs had become my job, way worse than a regular 9 to 5\. “Every day I thought about my sons. At some point, I remember crying, at the end I cried a lot. I wanted to see my kids, but I thought it was (bad for) them seeing their mom in that shape.

“On Mothers Day, I knew I needed to do something. I came to the (Veteran’s Administration), and they got me into New Directions. I needed structure … I knew it would be a year- (long program). Nothing else was going right in my life, so off I went.”

New Directions is a non-profit organization that operates houses for 217 women and men in a rigorous recovery program for homeless veterans. The first six months are “spent working on yourself,” said Banton of the program she credits with giving her new hope. It operates on the 12-Step principles, offering housing, clothing and group contact. The next six months focus on getting the recovering addict “back into society.”

Banton now works as New Directions’ accountant and lives in a sober house with eight women. She pays rent, abides by the curfews, attends five 12-Step meetings a week feels “blessed” each day.

> “Home is the place where, when you … go there, they have to take you in.” — — Robert Frost

“I’ve learned a lot in the last year,” she said. “I’ve learned that alcohol and drugs are not my problem, but what I used as a solution to not live life on its terms. I learned I made poor choices.”

How would she counsel a City Council member trying to find a “solution” to homelessness?

“If you jail homeless addicts, they get dry,” Banton offered. “If you jail them and assist them, they might get better. If you’re going to take them off the streets, (then) really help them. You know, at some point, all addicts don’t want to be there … “It’s about outreach — addicts need to hear from other addicts. They have to see some examples. No matter what walk of life you come from, you can be a role model. I stayed connected to New Directions because the other women kept me going. In the beginning, that’s all I had to hold onto.”

New Directions has outreach teams, runs a detox facility, conducts programs to reintegrate veterans with their families and provides job training and placement.

“If you don’t take care of the whole person, you’ve missed it,” said New Directions Executive Director Toni Reinis.

“About 80 percent of homeless veterans abuse drugs or alcohol,” Reinis said. “There was a lot of drug use among soldiers in Vietnam while they were serving, and many came back addicted. We’re seeing more alcoholism (than drug abuse) in soldiers returning from Iraq.

“We’re doing more with less,” Reinis added. “Meanwhile, all of our insurance has gone up tremendously; expenses have absolutely skyrocketed. And the people coming in are so broken down.”

Between her curfew, recovery meetings, job and sobriety, Banton is pursuing a degree in drug counseling.

“I have the experience, now I’m getting the intellectual part,” she laughs.

Her sons, now 24 and 17, were raised by her family during the decade their mother was absent. Her oldest works with Head Start and her youngest is a senior in high school. Does she worry they might become addicts?

“I do,” Banton said. “I worry more about the point (when) there’s nothing I can do, except be an example. My parents couldn’t make me stop, my children could-n’t make me stop … I hope they would see where I am now, and see there are other choices.

“My children seem to be moving in the right direction... but then, so was I … My parents still live in Carson (where I grew up). They never gave up hope. These days, I go down and sit with them for a few hours and just be the daughter they missed out on for all those years.” (Editor’s note: Sylvia Renee Banton will be honored at the Westside Hunger and Homeless Coalition’s Success Breakfast on Friday, Oct. 8 at 7:30 am. Tickets cost $25 and are available at www.westsideshelter.org). (Kelly Hayes-Raitt is a political consultant specializing in public relations and community organizing campaigns. She can be reached at (310) 474-5545 or www.CommunityCampaigns.com).

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on October 6, 2004.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/100604.pdf?ref=smdp.com)