[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 4 (Tuesday, January 21, 1997)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E111-E112]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         HOMELESS IN THE HEART

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. WALTER H. CAPPS

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, January 21, 1997

  Mr. CAPPS. Mr. Speaker, I want to bring to my colleagues' attention 
an essay written by a constituent of mine that illustrates the best of 
the human spirit. Torin Rea, his mother, and his younger brother found 
themselves homeless and living in a shelter in my hometown of Santa 
Barbara when he was in his teens. But instead of giving up, he and his 
family worked hard to make a better life for themselves.
  Torin's eloquent and moving essay details his struggle of dealing 
with the horrible toll homelessness can take on a family. But more 
importantly, he describes how, faced with adversity, a family can pull 
together and overcome even the toughest times, becoming even closer in 
the process.

       When the word homeless is mentioned, one quickly pictures a 
     poor soul huddled in a box, eating the few scraps of food 
     they can find. Or a person too mentally imbalanced to lead a 
     productive life in society, wandering down the street 
     babbling in words only he or she can understand. In Jo 
     Goodwin Parker's short story, ``What is Poverty?'', Parker 
     tells her graphic and incisive experience with homelessness. 
     She accounts the times when she had nothing to eat for 
     herself, only her children. The hard nights on the street 
     with the cold biting at her side, with no ability to warm 
     herself, she curls up with her children in a cardboard box. 
     The painful feeling of not being able to feed her children 
     runs deep into the heart. This mother had no means of 
     supporting herself or her children, but she valiantly 
     continues to mother them in the best

[[Page E112]]

     way she can. This woman felt so much humility and shame 
     throughout her life, it is amazing she has any courage or 
     strength left at all. Although her account was sad and full 
     of despair, not all stories of homelessness are as shocking. 
     Many families live in the same predicament with shelter. I 
     have been a homeless child who lived in a community shelter. 
     I too have shared the same fear and sadness, the shame of 
     society, and the gained strength of independence from 
     surviving the loss of my home.
       My social status throughout my life has never been one of 
     wealth, but far from poverty. My family lived in a beautiful 
     country cottage for twelve years, while raising two boys and 
     launching a prosperous business. We lived the American 
     lifestyle. There was always dinner on the table, and presents 
     under the tree at Christmas. Our needs and wants were always 
     met.
       When I was twelve my parents began suffering serious 
     marital distress. Unable to resolve the issues that can 
     sometimes never be resolved, my mother told my father to 
     leave. With no other suitable and stable means of income my 
     mother, brother, and I began to have financial problems. 
     Unable to pay the rent, our landlord promptly served us with 
     an eviction notice. Within thirty days we had nowhere to go, 
     and nobody to turn to; reluctantly my abridged family moved 
     into a nearby motel for a week. I recall that week as one of 
     the most disorienting times in my life. When I came home to 
     our motel room I had no bed to call my own, no kitchen to 
     make myself a snack as we were living out of an ice box, and 
     nothing to call my own anymore, just the bag that I came 
     with. I constantly questioned my mother where we were going 
     to move and she always replied, ``I don't know son.'' Two 
     days before our stay at the motel was up my mother told my 
     brother and I that we were going to move into a family 
     shelter in Santa Barbara. My heart sank into my shoes. 
     Shelters were for people who lived in alleys. Shelters were 
     for the people who had no family. Shelters were for people 
     who had no place to go, and we had nowhere to go. Within two 
     days we had moved our remaining valuable possessions into an 
     eight by ten room. The shelter we moved into had five 
     bedrooms crammed with bunk beds, clothes, and children. Each 
     room housed a mother and her children, and a large restaurant 
     style kitchen which served as our collective eatery. The 
     floors were dirty, the kitchen smelled of rotting vegetables, 
     but I was with my family and we were safe. The first night we 
     were there I tried with all my might to decorate my room as 
     if it were my home, but the walls felt as if they were 
     cardboard, liable to disappear at any moment. I laid in bed 
     that night, struggling with my emotions, and wondering if I 
     would ever have a home again.
       The next day while commuting to school, I tried to decide 
     what I would tell my friends. How could I gracefully tell 
     them, most of whom were all wealthy, that I had moved into a 
     homeless shelter? I had never felt so much shame, and I had 
     never felt so small. While my friends were going out to 
     dinner every Friday night, I was at my dirty shelter cooking 
     macaroni and cheese watching my brother and helping him with 
     his homework. I could never leave him alone, or family 
     services would come and take us both away from our mother. 
     While my friends' parents were having dinner parties, my 
     mother was out working extra hours to save for rent, and to 
     put food on the table. Many nights I had to come home from 
     school to baby-sit my brother while my mom was out. This made 
     a social life completely unattainable. We were not allowed 
     any visitors inside the shelter, so when friends came over, I 
     shamefully told them to wait outside while I grabbed my 
     things. They all asked where I lived and I told them I lived 
     in an apartment complex, ashamed to tell them the truth. I 
     had no extra money to spend on fun, as most of it was used on 
     gas and maintenance on my car to get to school. My whole 
     existence as a carefree teenager became the duty of a father 
     to my brother, a confidant to my mother, and a starving 
     student living in shame of his existence.
       As time slowly passed by we became accustomed to the 
     makeshift home we lived in. My mother continued saving money 
     every day to move out, since we were only allowed six months 
     to stay. I continued with school into my senior year, and was 
     doing remarkably well. My brother, who used to be a shut in, 
     began making friends at his new school in Santa Barbara. We 
     trudged through day after day living in the shelter with 
     screaming babies, and beaten wives, finding strength in 
     places we never knew about. I began to cook more often, and 
     enjoyed the simple satisfaction of serving my mother and 
     brother dinner.
       My mother became so strong and driven I couldn't help but 
     to admire her courage and her grace in such a time of 
     despair. My own strength grew as well and I began to see that 
     everyone can have happiness if they choose to. I began to 
     love the small family that lived in the shelter; the mothers, 
     the babies, and the bond that we all shared by having nothing 
     but one another. Coming towards the end of the sixth month, 
     my mother found a home. She had finally saved enough money to 
     move and our time in the shelter had come to an end. Six 
     months of struggle, six months of humility, and six months of 
     strength would now send us out into the world. Our dreams 
     still intact, and our happiness soaring, we moved into our 
     first house we could call our own.
       Three years later I still look back upon that time in my 
     life and smile. It was then when I truly found my strength 
     and happiness. I had never been so close to my family until 
     everything we had was taken from us. Becoming homeless can be 
     the most horrible and humbling experience in a person's life, 
     but it can also be the most empowering. Homelessness is not 
     always bums on the sidewalk, it can be good decent families 
     that have stumbled into hard times, unable to fight the power 
     of money. My experience of being without a home was the most 
     painful time in my life, but in a way it was the brightest. 
     It was then I found myself and my strength. It was then when 
     I found my family. It was when I had nothing, that I found 
     everything. I will never forget our shelter on De La Vina 
     street, and the person I found there.

  Torin Rea is now 21 years old sharing a home in San Diego, CA, and 
working at one of the highest selling Nordstroms in the country. Last 
year he was the first 21-year-old ever to achieve the honor of top 
seller in the region. He is a legend in his own time.

                          ____________________