Last spring, pregnant and penniless, Paula Palos camped out in a tent with her 2-year-old daughter in the hills above Simi Valley. With their help, Palos, 29, was able to apply for government aid and move into a modest, two-bedroom apartment in Simi Valley. In winter, the 4-year-old PADS program offers up to two dozen residents a warm, safe place to sleep each night, serving as many as homeless people between November and March. Organizers say the program also gives people who find themselves suddenly without a home a chance to apply for government assistance or to save enough money to pay a security deposit on an apartment.
Situated in the old St. Francis of Assisi Church on Royal Avenue near Madera Road, the center will provide storage space, mail service, voice mail, a jobs board, laundry facilities and showers for the homeless. Palos said she is planning to take nursing classes in the spring. She still depends on church charity to feed herself and her two young daughters, but she credits PADS with helping her get off the streets.
The Samaritan Center is scheduled to open at the end of March, when the shelter program closes for the summer. A companion meals program, however, operates year-round. Started nine years ago as a way to pool community resources to feed the hungry, the volunteer-driven meals program operates seven nights a week, rotating among six churches around Simi Valley. On a recent evening, about people crowded into the community room at Grace Brethren Church for fried chicken, mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie.
Volunteer Doris Lembeck said many of those who come to the meals program are the formerly homeless who cannot afford to feed themselves and their families. As she sat at a long, cafeteria-style table drinking coffee and eating pie, Lexie Troupe, 44, said she has been coming in for a free meal each day for the past year and a half.
Troupe, a soft-spoken woman with a ready smile, said she has acute cirrhosis of the liver and lives on disability income, which barely pays her rent. Lifelong Simi Valley resident Steve Latham, 42, agreed. Latham said he is training to be a computer technician.
