It’s been a rough month for Linda Richter. The 82-year-old Santa Paula woman had been renting a room in a mobile home, but two weeks ago suddenly found herself homeless.
"The told me to leave, so that's when I had to come here," said Richter. "I didn't have any other place to go."
We’re at Santa Paula’s Harvard Shelter. Fortunately, Richter was able to find help through the shelter. It’s a four-year-old grass roots center in Santa Paula which helps some of those who have nowhere else to go. Kay Wilson-Bolton is the shelter’s director.
"You see people struggling in their life. This family, which just walked by, they were living in a home that was sold," said Wilson-Bolton. "They had no place to go, and they were given three days to move out."
The family with two young kids was suddenly homeless.
Shelter Manager Melinda Palm says many people in the community don’t realize there is a homelessness problem.
"They don't get the full picture of it," said Palm. "They hear homeless, and their mind goes a totally different way...they think street people, drugs...nothing good...and it's all wrong."
Wilson-Bolton, who is real estate agent, founded the shelter.
"Christmas Eve morning, in 2008, we found a homeless man who had died in one of our churches," said Wilson-Bolton. "I realized we actually had homeless people in Santa Paula."
She started a hot meal program, which expanded into temporary winter shelters, and then emergency shelters.
But then, in 2019 the non-profit then known as the Spirit of Santa Paula got a big opportunity. It was the chance to get a permanent home in what had been a restaurant and nightclub on Harvard Boulevard in Santa Paula.
The owners lost it in a foreclosure. Wilson-Bolton, who is a real estate agent, sold it to a Bay Area investor. But then she approached the investor about renting it, and turning it into a homeless shelter. The investor was moved by the idea, and offered a 30-year, no cost lease. Six months later, that investor gave the building to the non-profit.
They recently got a $1.5 million state grant which has allowed a number of improvements. It has room for 49 people, and houses homeless from Santa Paula, Fillmore, and Piru. But now, Wilson-Bolton says the place that’s helped hundreds in crisis over the last four years is facing a crisis of its own.
It survives largely on grants, and when they lost their grant writer, they missed out on some opportunities.
Wilson-Bolton says they need to come up with $280,000 to fill the funding gap, and to keep the doors open through this summer. The hope is the cities of Fillmore and Santa Paula will help, because the shelter is housing their homeless.
Even as the shelter’s supporters struggle to find the support they need to keep the doors open, it is working to make a difference.
Laura Interiano came to Santa Paula from El Salvador with her two young kids, and they lived at the shelter. But, she got her legal status, an apartment in Ventura, and because she was a caterer in her homeland, she returned to the shelter for a job as its kitchen manager.
"There's a lot of feelings involved in this," she said through an interpreter. "First, I was a guest here, then I started working, and the reason I stayed here is because I have a lot of feelings for this place."
The shelter is intended to be a safety net to help people get into permanent housing, as well as steering people towards key social services.
That’s what Richter is hoping for. The homeless 82-year-old still works part time in a supermarket.
"I would like to end up in an apartment, or a house, or even to rent a room," said Richter. She's hoping to once again have a place she call call home.
