By Janet Phelan
(Editor’s note: ‘From the Street’ is written by Janet Phelan, an educated woman with an extensive background in journalism. She has been living on the streets of Santa Monica for a year).
It is a windy winter evening in Santa Monica. Beverly stands at the Blue Bus stop on Colorado Avenue and clutches her sweater around her shoulders. Her hair is tied back in a loose, graying bun. She is small, bird-like, and unfashionably thin.
She is staying in a local hotel with her 35-year-old MS stricken daughter. The two came out recently from New York.
William, her daughter’s fiancee and the financial support system for the two women, was killed in an auto accident back East as he readied to come to California to meet up with the women.
Beverly’s eyes become liquid as she says that she and Wendy have run out of money. “The hotel let us stay one more night, even though we didn’t pay,” she says.
Seventy-eight years old, Beverly is perched on the edge of the street.
Educated, well-bred, she avoids harsh words toward her ex-husband, a Beverly Hills resident and millionaire. “He is disinterested in our welfare,” she says, choosing her words carefully.
She says she attempted to contact several synagogues for assistance. “They are the worst,” she says sadly. “All that is offered is psychological counseling. We need a place to live.”
Her meager Social Security check was consumed by the hotel bill. Her daughter’s disability application is six months away from approval.
I tell her about the cold weather shelters and sandwiches at Ocean Park Community Center. The next afternoon, Beverly is in the clothes queue at the homeless agency. “I don’t know what I’m doing here,” she says. “Maybe I can get a pair of slacks.”
“We just need $11, and we can buy another night at the Travel Lodge,” she says. She has met with caseworker Cheri Valdez, who tried without success to access emergency funds for the two women.
There will be no $11. Beverly fingers my Star of David necklace and smiles wistfully. She says, “It is hard to come from so much and come to so little.”
We hug and I promise to call her at her hotel in a little while. When I call, she and Wendy have checked out, leaving no forwarding address.
I search in the food lines for the elderly woman, but I do not find her. I pray that she and her daughter have found shelter. The reality is that the agencies do not protect us. The churches and synagogues do not protect us. Our families and friends do not protect us. The streets are a large mouth and will eat us alive.
It is not only the possibility of rape that Beverly and Wendy face. It is not only the possibility of murder.
It is not only the erosion of hope, and the coldness of an indifferent world.
Beverly and Wendy face the problem of finding a safe and legal place to sleep. They face the challenge of finding a place to go to the bathroom at 2 a.m. without getting ticketed by the police.
They face the difficulty of getting adequate medical care and the logistics of getting transportation to the doctor.
They face having their few remaining possessions stolen by predatory street thieves.
Worst of all, Beverly and Wendy now face invisibility, as the world of the successful and moneyed turns a blind eye on the desperation of being homeless.
I wonder if I should have given Beverly my Star of David. Or, considering what two frail women will face alone on the street, perhaps I should have given her my hunting knife. She will need both types of protection on the streets of Santa Monica. (Janet C. Phelan is a university graduate and has been a free-lance writer for more than two decades at various publications, including the Los Angeles Times).
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on February 16, 2004. Read the original PDF.