After falling on hard times and homelessness for several years following a serious traffic accident, longtime Malibu resident Nancy Rosenquist finally has a roof over her head. Her new apartment in the Marina del Rey/ Venice Beach area is now ‘home, sweet home,’ but it took a village of government agencies, nonprofit organizations, churches and individuals to get her there.
Malibu’s Community Assistance Resource Team (CART) recently held a party for Rosenquist, giving her a chance to thank the many people and organizations that helped her get through the past couple years, and give hope to other homeless people who were invited.
Lori Kansteiner, resident of Point Dume Club, first met Rosenquist around 2000.
“Nancy was a guard at Point Dume Club and she always had a treat for my dog,” Kansteiner said. “She’s an amazing, resourceful woman, and has made money house-sitting, pet-sitting and taking care of people in Malibu. She earned a paralegal certificate, and is also one semester away from getting her bachelor’s degree in political science from CSU — Channel Islands.”
On May 31, 2014, Rosenquist’s life changed forever. Already homeless, she’d been living out of a rental car for 10 months, parking on a Malibu friend’s property. Driving on highway 154 outside Santa Barbara, her tire blew out, the car went off the road and rolled over three times — she woke up a week later.
“They used the paddles,” Rosenquist said. “I was in a coma for a week and had a broken pelvis, an elbow that came out of its skin and a serious head injury.”
During her lengthy hospital stay, there wasn’t anyone to make sure Rosenquist’s bills got paid and the rental car company reported the car stolen.
After the hospital, Rosenquist convalesced for six weeks at another facility until her Medicare ran out and they dropped her at a homeless shelter. All of her possessions had been in the car during the accident, including phone, iPad and laptop, and all had been destroyed or stolen. She had nothing.
Because she was unknowingly accused of grand theft auto; after being back on the street, she was arrested and taken to the CRDF LA County jail near Hawthorne. Had she known the rental car company reported the car stolen, she would’ve contacted them to straighten it out.
“The jail was disgusting,” Rosenquist said. “It’s insanely awful — bed bugs, Staph infections … I’m street-wise, but I’ve never seen anything like that. They wouldn’t let me have a cane in jail, so I sat in a wheelchair for over 50 days. They wouldn’t give me any of the meds I was supposed to be on, and I was slowly declining and got nothing for the wreck-related injuries.
“I felt I just kept getting violated and violated and violated,” Rosenquist continued. “The senior public defender tried to hit me with three felonies, but eventually dropped all charges except for a misdemeanor,” Rosenquist said. “Pamela Ulich was instrumental in getting me out,” after contacting Sheila Kuehl’s office and other officials.
Following a month’s stay at a budget hotel because she “couldn’t walk,” Rosenquist required brain surgery at UCLA as a result of the accident.
After returning to Malibu, Rosenquist lived on the street with help from various friends, sometimes staying at the county’s winter shelter. The path to finding a place to live was a long haul, riddled with bureaucracy. She finally got two aggressive caseworkers who advocated for her, and eventually, through Edelman Westside Mental Health Center and Step Up on Second, found an apartment that charges one-third of her social security income for rent. She pays $327/month and received a one-time $900 stipend for furnishings.
CART member Terry Davis has been helping and advocating for Rosenquist. “The real hiccup was in housing — she probably had to go to the housing office 15 or 20 times, and approval was constantly being held up for minutiae … Because of some arcane rule, the apartment Nancy got had to sit empty for three months before she was allowed to move in,” Davis described. “The amount of patience required from people who want to be housed is unbelievable — they’re given hope and then they constantly have the rug pulled out from under them.”
“I was at the end of my rope — I didn’t have any further to fall … When I got my apartment, I stayed in bed for a couple days. I didn’t realize how much it had all affected me,” “Rosenquist said. The icing on the cake was getting her cat back from Dr. Lupo, who provided free boarding. “I can actually close the door and lock it behind me now.”
Since being housed, Rosenquist has been invited by Brigid Kelly, public policy associate for People Assisting the Homeless (PATH) to join a committee that will help to decide how to allot Measure H monies.
CART is now a 501(c)3 nonprofit, thanks to pro bono work from Pepperdine Legal Clinic. For more information, go to facebook.com/malibucart. Donations can be sent to CART, 23708 Malibu Colony, #31, Malibu, CA 90265 or call 310.456.3591.
