Dependency, lack of resources fuel the problem
When Dolores Martinez heads home most days, there is no
guarantee it will be the same place she slept the night before.
Martinez is homeless.
The 30-year-old, who has blood-shot eyes and a moon-shaped face,
hides most of herself in baggy clothing. She wears baggy jeans,
dirty white shoes and a brown Quiksilver sweater. She sleeps on
Park Hill some nights, behind the Quik Stop on San Felipe Road, and
in empty fields, with eight to ten other people who have banded
together in the last few months.
Dependency, lack of resources fuel the problem
When Dolores Martinez heads home most days, there is no guarantee it will be the same place she slept the night before. Martinez is homeless.
The 30-year-old, who has blood-shot eyes and a moon-shaped face, hides most of herself in baggy clothing. She wears baggy jeans, dirty white shoes and a brown Quiksilver sweater. She sleeps on Park Hill some nights, behind the Quik Stop on San Felipe Road, and in empty fields, with eight to ten other people who have banded together in the last few months.
She has been homeless for four months, but others have been homeless for years.
“I was in Emmaus House,” she said. “Then when I left I was doing good. I got a job. I couldn’t make it to work because I had transportation issues.”
Cindy Parr, the manager of the San Benito homeless shelter – which is open Dec. 1 to March 15 most years – explained that Martinez had been sleeping on Park Hill when she and another volunteer found her.
Parr and a friend, Shauna Hoggard, volunteer to visit with Martinez and other homeless people around town three times a week when the shelter is not open.
“It’s just to check to make sure they don’t need anything,” Parr said, “They might need blankets or hygiene [products] and we want to know they are okay.”
They got Martinez into a hospital and Emmaus House staff agreed to take her in because she was sick.
“I had no money for rent and ended up coming back out,” Martinez said of landing back on the street.
She said her car got flat tires so she couldn’t make it to work on time. She lost the job. Then she found employment at a candy factory, but she still couldn’t make it to work on time. Now, she says, her bike has been stolen and she twisted her ankle and can’t look for work.
Later on, she acknowledged what is likely the true cause of her problems – she is an alcoholic.
“My main goal is to break away from the environment I shouldn’t be in to focus on getting myself back on track. I know myself. If I break away, like, [I] will be able to focus because I won’t do the things I shouldn’t be doing.”
For now the company she keeps encourages the behavior. Carlos Delgado, 29, used to stay with family but they have since reneged on offers because of his alcoholism. Delgado wears high-water sweatpants and a flannel shirt, with tan hiking boots on his feet. When he saw a few six-packs of Lipton Ice Tea, he shouted out, “Beer!”
Parr pointed out it was ice tea.
“My family, they don’t like me because I drink,” Delgado said. “They are embarrassed of me.”
He last had a permanent place to live in March 2007 when he got into a car crash and had to pay fines.
“That led me into alcoholism,” Delgado said. “I need rehab … I want the judge to send me to rehab.”
He has been in and out of jail, but he said the local system offers no substance abuse counseling, though Martinez interjected that they do have Alcoholics Anonymous meetings.
“We’re afraid of going through detox,” Martinez said. “[You] go through hot flashes, cold flashes. [When] trying to quit drinking you know you want the next beer and it’s right there next to you or at the store. It’s like the worst feeling you can go through. It makes me want to cry.”
“It makes me want a beer,” Carlos interjects.
Parr and her friend Shauna Hoggard know well the struggle with addiction Martinez and Delgado are going through, though they have both been fortunate enough to avoid homelessness and have been in recovery. Parr will celebrate three years sober Oct. 18. Hoggard will be sober three years in a month.
One of the requirements for a bed at the shelter when it is open and the hot meals that come with it is that clients must be sober.
“The thing with the shelter is that most people use that time to stay sober, stay clean and you see the fall when they leave,” Parr said. “We need a rehabilitation where these people can have a sober environment.”
Delgado has stayed at the shelter in the past and followed the clean and sober rule, but Martinez has not.
When asked if she would be staying at the shelter when it opens, she said she didn’t know.
“I have a couple options,” she said.
Parr talked to her before leaving, offered a second hug and talked to her in hushed tones. Martinez’s red eyes teared up and she turned away.
“I said if she is ready she can stay with me,” Parr said. “She has it in her.”
Michael Martin ended up on the streets not because of substance abuse, but because of a disability. He had managed an apartment complex, Parr said, until he was unable to continue. He has been homeless for a year. He stayed at the shelter last winter.
“I got sick and I could no longer do my job,” Martin said.
At first he stayed at a friend’s house, but when the friend’s brother lost a home, Martin found himself without a spot to sleep. He has been trying to get on disability, but has not been able to get the Social Security office to sign off on it despite a doctor’s note.
“The doctors are trying, but it’s like pulling teeth with social security,” he said.
Martin, who spoke articulately about current events in Hollister and San Benito County, made clear that he does not panhandle or beg for money. He has food stamps, but at $177 a month, he points out it averages out to $6 a day.
“I hope I’m off the streets,” Martin said, of where he sees himself in one year. “I didn’t think I’d be here this long.”
He encouraged people to donate to the shelter rather than giving money out to individuals and said, “It’s a simple thing. People think it takes a lot of money, but if everyone over 18 donated a dollar a month, [the homeless task force] would be able to keep it open full-time.”
A few days later, Martin woke to a man cursing him. He told Parr that a man who identified himself as an ex-Marine cursed him and rammed Martin’s shopping cart into his head repeatedly.
“Whether you are homeless or not, no one has the right to do that to you,” Parr said.
Martin was taken to the hospital with chest pains, but was released the next morning. Parr said she believed he had been staying with a friend, but by Wednesday afternoon he was back downtown with his shopping cart.
“It is very unexpected in this community,” Parr said, a few days after the incident. “But people in this community don’t want to admit we have a problem like big cities. It is inevitable – the crimes against the homeless are going to happen because it is more visble.”
Parr and the board of directors for the Homeless Task Force have put together a five-year plan that has an ultimate goal of opening up a full-time shelter that would offer support programs for substance abuse, mental health issues and help with job training.
This year, she has a plan to continue with the community service projects she and clients started late last year with a cemetery clean up. She met with Clay Lee, community services director for Hollister, and this season clients who do not have employment will volunteer to clean up the sound walls around the city.
“Clay only has four full-time staff members and he has nine miles of sound proof walls,” Parr said. “We want to show the community we are willing to give back.”
Parr is ever the optimist, even after working at the shelter for three years and seeing many of the same faces return year after year.
“There are those we know we will never be able to change,” Parr said. “It’s the love. I know in my heart this is who I am called to love.”
And there are the success stories they have every year.
Augustine Duarte ended up on the streets after a divorce that drained him financially and emotionally. He slept in the doorways of buildings and at the top of the parking garage.
“I just didn’t want to be around anyone,” he said. “I was tired of all the drama.”
Clean-shaven except for a goatee with his hair combed back, he wore a green sweater that said “Hope” on it. Someone told him about the shelter last winter and he rolled up on his bike for the first time in January.
“The environment was positive,” Duarte said. “They got me into church, fed me, clothed me. I thought there was hope that there are nice people out there.”
Duarte’s job as a saw filer came a couple months into his stay at the shelter. Jon Byers, the owner of Bay Area Saws and Services, ran into him in the K-Mart parking lot and asked him if he knew how to weld.
He started out as a part-time contract employee and now works full-time with Byers.
“I was able to pay my bills being housed there,” Duarte said. “I got a motor for my truck. I was buying only things to help me for my job. Now I live in a house.”
