The California dream has become a California nightmare for single mom, Stephanie Moorehead, and her six children who arrived in California about a year ago with $8,000 in cash and hopes for a new start in California.
Unable to find affordable housing in the San Diego area for a family of seven, the family ended up at the San Diego County welfare office, whereupon welfare and children’s services began splitting up the family. Two of the teenaged children are now in a youth shelter and foster care in the San Diego area.
Stephanie and the four remaining children, John 22, Shannon 13, Christina 11, and Liam, 10, found their way to the Malibu Labor Exchange, where Oscar tried to help Stephanie and John get some work-dishwashing and construction. However these low paying, unsteady jobs do not support a family or provide housing. Within months they were homeless in Malibu. Their rental car was towed.
In spite of Stephanie’s efforts to hold the family together, it is obvious that she will fail without some emergency help and not the bureaucratic kind. Stephanie’s ADC that she just started receiving, will not enable her to get housing in the L.A. housing market nor will it enable her to buy her way out of this California nightmare.
Hollie and Daniel Packman of Standing on Stone (SOS), Malibu’s outreach to local homeless, and I have been working with Stephanie and the kids. Stephanie washes dishes six nights a week in a local restaurant, is seeking military benefits, but they have not materialized.
We agree with Stephanie that their best chance to stay together would be for them to go back to Guam where they lived for many years, know people, and had military work. In Guam housing is doable and homelessness rare. Eventually, she will be able to send for the others in San Diego.
Stephanie and the kids have been taken in temporarily by a Malibu family, but time is running out. Airfare for Guam goes up in September. For five people to Guam the lowest airfare we could find was $4,370, which the SOS project and I have fronted via plastic with faith that people in the community will open their hearts to this family in need.
If you can help, your check will be tax-deductible if made payable to the Malibu Community Labor Exchange or MCLE with a reference to “SOS Family.” You may send checks payable to the MCLE to: SOS at 1667 Las Virgenes Cyn. Rd. #8, Calabasas, CA 91302. If you have questions, call me at 310.457.1614 or Hollie Packman at 818.878.0041. Should we by some miracle collect more than the immediate needs of Stephanie’s family, we will use the balance to continue the work of the Labor Exchange and SOS, both local 501(c)3 charities assisting poor workers and local homeless.
We can only pray that some day if you or your family are in need, the kindness of strangers may see you through.
Mona Loo, Executive Director
Malibu Community Labor Exchange