St. Vincent de Paul Village

  
 

A Miracle for Laura

By Carolyn Passig Jensen
Special to Village News

   It may have been an angel who guided Laura to St. Vincent de Paul Village on a bright day in March 1998. Despite the sunshine, Laura was far from happy that day. She was homeless with nowhere to go and no one to care.

   Life had not been easy for the tall, slim, 62-year old grandmother. Her husband had died in 1964 when she was pregnant with her second child. With only a high school education, Laura found it difficult to support her two children, but somehow she managed. “We were never evicted. We never had our utilities shut off,” Laura remembered.

   A series of misfortunes in 1997 and 1998 put Laura in need of a miracle and the support she found at St. Vincent de Paul Village. In May 1997, she developed calcium deposits on the optic nerve of her left eye and lost vision in that eye. Only a few weeks later, Laura suffered a heart attack and required coronary bypass surgery. While recuperating, she broke her knee and had surgery to repair it. “I was not a very healthy person, mentally or physically, when I came to the Village,” noted Laura.

   She had lived in San Diego since 1990 with her daughter and cared for her grandchildren. Her daughter, who has psychiatric problems as a result of a head injury, decided in 1998 that she did not want her mother to live with her anymore. Of that time, Laura remembered having “no idea what to do. No idea of where to go.”

   A friend told her about the Village and she telephoned for information, only to learn that the Village, along with all the other homeless shelters she called, had no openings. “But when the receptionist explained all that was available at the Village, I thought that it would be the best place for me,” she said. She decided to go to the Village and put her name on the waiting list for residency.

   “I was told to take the trolley to 12th and Imperial and walk west two blocks. I wound up in a warehouse district,” Laura remembered. Lost, still limping from her knee surgery, she nearly panicked. “What should I do now?” she thought. “Who cares what happens to me? “
Afraid and unsure, Laura went back to the trolley stop and rested awhile. “As I sat there, I felt an inner voice say ‘Get hold of yourself. If it’s not west, try east.’” she said. “So I started walking east.”

   As she walked, she sensed she was no longer alone. “It was like a presence came behind me and kept gently pushing me and saying ‘Keep going. Keep going. Keep going,’” she remembered. “When I walked into the lobby at the Village, I hesitated, but the presence kept easing me forward — giving me little pushes, little shoves — until I got to the desk. When I got to the desk, the presence left. To this day, I know that God’s hand was there. I know He helped me.”

   At the Village, Laura slept on a cot in the day room until a bunk became available in the Paul Mirabile Center (PMC). After four or five months, Laura moved into a room at the Joan Kroc Center (JKC). “It’s a miracle that I didn’t end up on the street,” she said.
While Laura lived at the PMC, she and several other residents formed what they called the “Curb Sitter’s Club.”

    “We had to be out of the bunk area by 7 a.m. and we couldn’t come back until 5 p.m. There wasn’t any other place to sit but on the curb. In the morning after breakfast, we’d get our second cup of coffee and go outside and sit on the curb and drink our coffee and smoke our cigarettes until the (Career and Education Center) opened,” Laura recalled.

   At that time, the JKC had more spaces for men and families than spaces for single women, so all the men in the Curb Sitter’s Club were provided rooms in about three weeks, said Laura, while she had to wait several months, which “bummed me out.” Yet she was fortunate; at that time, many women had waited much longer for a room.

   At the Village, Laura worked in the kitchen while meeting with a counselor who helped her deal with her depression. With the help of the Village staff, she found a cardiologist who accepted Medicaid and attended a cardiac rehabilitation program at a local hospital.

   Laura met with a case manager on a regular basis for assessment. Her short-term goals were to maintain a low stress level, keep all her doctor’s appointments and attend counseling sessions. Her long-term goal was financial self-sufficiency. “I had signed up for disability before I came to the Village, so I just had to wait for it to come through,” she explained.

   When her disability payments started, she was nearly ready to move out of the JKC. Her health had improved and counseling plus medication had helped her depression. Laura set her sights on moving to Village Place, an affordable apartment complex that is part of St. Vincent de Paul Village, and she moved into her own apartment there in November 1999.

   “The reason I ended up homeless was because I trusted the wrong person,” Laura commented. “I believe that happens to a lot of people. There is a false belief that all homeless people are addicts or lazy. That is not true.”

    “I am extremely blessed that a miracle got me a place in the Village and that I never ended up on the street,” Laura concluded. “I am extremely grateful for the counseling, the medical and dental care and all the help the Village gave me.”