By the time Monique Ybarra was in middle school, she lived in a motel with her mother, brother and sister. In ninth grade and a self-described rebel, she moved out and moved in with a boyfriend. You could also say she moved into a bottle of vodka – make that many bottles of vodka.
When she was 16, Ybarra woke up in a hospital nearly dead from alcohol poisoning. The boyfriend and the alcohol went away years ago. But struggles remain for this 26-year-old mother of three.
Ybarra is what experts call sheltered homeless, and with more than 28,000 children in our county living in motels, tents or cars, Ybarra’s is an all-too-common story. Yet for Ybarra, as with some others in her situation, there is cause for hope.
If you spend enough time with the poorest of the poor, you come to realize there is much to be said of nurture over nature. Homelessness can beget homelessness.
Still, those who struggle the most can learn to make good choices, especially when they connect with nonprofits such as the Illumination Foundation, an Irvine-based organization dedicated to helping homeless people.
Wanting to avoid the confines of the Anaheim motel room where Ybarra raises her three boys, she asks that we meet in a park.
On this day the boys, all under 6 years old, are in day care, courtesy of the Anaheim and O.C. boards of education. And, frankly, that is fine. This isn’t a column about kids. This is a column about what it means to navigate our county of plenty without savings, where the difference between a paycheck and unemployment means either financial assistance, a homeless shelter or living on the street.
Ybarra tries to put a positive spin on her challenges: “I’ve had little bits and pieces of nice living.”
After a divorce several years ago, Ybarra and her first two sons lived in her mother’s apartment until her mother ran out of money and was evicted. Ybarra and the boys moved into a motel. Then things started looking up. She found a full-time caregiving job that paid $13.39 an hour and moved into a duplex.
But she also fell in love with a man who is unemployed, and had a third child. And last spring her client shifted to another provider. Unable to find work, she was forced back on the streets and into a motel.
Returning to motel living with three young boys is tough. Ybarra shares that she retreats to the bathroom when she gets deeply depressed. “I have to cry my eyes out,” she admits, “but not in front of my kids.”
She hopes the agency she worked for offers her a new client soon. In the meantime, and with the help of the Illumination Foundation, Ybarra spends her days learning to make better, more-informed decisions.
Her classes cover things most of us pick up from our parents, things like renting an apartment, having a bank account, paying bills. Still, nothing is easy – especially navigating bureaucracy.
WHAT’S ‘CHEAP’?
At a picnic table, Ybarra sorts through a small stack of paper with lists of places that she was told offer cheap housing. But in a county with skyrocketing rents and too few rentals, cheap is a relative term.
“A one-bedroom apartment costs $1,200, a two-bedroom $1,400,” Ybarra tells me. Before she lost her job, she had a bargain: $1,100 a month for a duplex that included a patch of yard. After she moved out, the owner raised the rent.
Government-subsidized “affordable” units go for $938 for a two-bedroom, Ybarra reports. But, she explains, there’s a catch. She says she was told she had to make $2,300 a month to qualify.
“That tripped me out a little bit,” Ybarra quietly says. “I don’t know why low-income housing expects you to make so much.”
Yes, Ybarra is too poor to qualify for permanent housing for the poor.
FEELING SHAME
We fall into a conversation about motel living. In some respects, it doesn’t seem too bad. A roof over your head, electricity, indoor plumbing, a bathroom.
When I was 17, I lived on my own for five months in a one-room, five-story walk-up with a sink and a narrow plywood board with a thin mattress for furniture. The toilet was a hole in the floor down the hall. But I lived alone.
“We sleep in the same area,” Ybarra points out. “I can’t put my kids in the bathroom during timeout; I have to put them in the corner.”
Ybarra has a microwave. She cooks in a neighbor’s motel room, borrowing the hot plate and skillet. She gets up at 5:30 every morning to make lunch for her children and get them off to school or day care.
Ybarra doesn’t want to be photographed in the motel, fearing friends will notice. She hopes her classes will help her climb out of what she calls “a cycle of homelessness.”
“I don’t want my kids to get older and still be in a motel,” she allows. “I’m motivated to try harder to get them a different life than I experienced.”
Ybarra reports she gets by on a patchwork of assistance. She receives $400 a month in food stamps. Additionally, she gets another $700 a month from the government for shelter.
She’s also applied for Section 8 housing vouchers. But she says the list is long. “It seems everybody in the world is on Section 8 housing.”
Sure, assistance annoys some people, Ybarra acknowledges. “It does suck when people start to judge. They’ll never understand the situation unless they go through it.”
She survives, in part, with support from her grandmother. “If it wasn’t for my grandma,” Ybarra explains, “I don’t know where I’d be today.”
NONPROFITS HELP
I notice a car, some 15 years old, parked nearby. Ybarra says she bought it with the help of tax refunds.
I’ve spent time with other homeless families and learned that a car is more important than a roof. Not only can a vehicle provide shelter, it means reliable access to work – and employers like reliable.
For Ybarra, the car also means being able to transport her children as well as attend Illumination Foundation classes.
Ybarra shares that other nonprofits have helped as well. She says the Catholic Worker Isaiah House in Santa Ana provided shelter during especially tough times. And she appreciates the help from Anaheim schools.
As we wind down our conversation, Ybarra emphasizes, “I’m trying to do everything I possibly can to make everything right.”
With the classes, she’s on the right path. Still, I wonder about some of her decisions. And I worry.
Contact the writer: dwhiting@ocregister.com
