Michele Beard has been homeless off and on for 2½ years, since she divorced from her husband. While sitting in the kitchen at Mountain Community Resources in Felton, the well-spoken 41-year-old said life without a home is about surviving the day-to-day — which can be especially difficult in the winter.
“You have to go with the flow,” said Beard, who has a 12-year-old son. “Staying out of the cold and wet becomes a priority.”
Because there are no homeless shelters in the San Lorenzo Valley or Scotts Valley and transportation is expensive, that can be a challenge, Beard said.
Next to her sits Jim Cavanagh, a 30-year-old ex-mechanic and U.S. Army soldier from Redwood Estates who has been homeless six months.
“People assume I’ve been homeless forever, but I’ve been a member of the working society my entire life,” Cavanagh said. “It’s been hard with the economy the way it is. People don’t want to think about that, because they don’t want to think that it could be them.”
Cavanagh’s kind eyes and easy smile clash with a big, bandaged gash on his forehead. He said the deep cut was from a drunken man who hit him with a metal pole and ran. The mark was a testament to life on the street.
“You deal with what you have to deal with every day,” he said with a shrug.
Cavanagh, who wears glasses and a painted trucker’s hat, has slept on couches at different friends’ houses during the cold season. He’s said he’s been learning Flash animation and HTML coding from a friend with hopes of reentering the workforce.
Both Beard and Cavanagh said it’s hard to find shelter outdoors, because spots under nearby bridges are often taken, and police tend to patrol a lot.
“We have to move around a lot. Police can be very robotic. They don’t give us any options on where to go, they just tell us to move or they will give a ticket,” Beard said. “Most of us don’t want to hurt or invade anyone. I just want somewhere to go to stay out of the wet and read.”
Beard said the area’s churches are great about giving out meals and clothing, but most don’t really want anyone homeless to hang around too long.
“Mountain Community Resources is the absolute exception, though,” Beard said.
Romina Cervantes’ office at Mountain Community Resources is cluttered with donated materials to help those that are homeless during the winter. She collects everything from sleeping bags to thermal clothing and blankets and said it is vital to get people out of the cold and prepared for the season.
In the wintertime, outdoor locations become much more tenuous, especially near creeks and rivers, Cervantes said.
“We warn people in the area when colder weather reports come out,” Cervantes said.
Outdoor temperatures can be dangerous for the homeless in the winter, contributing to hypothermia and other health concerns, according to Applied Survey Research.
“I worry about them every night when I see the temperatures drop,” said Cervantes, who has worked at the center 2½ years, the same amount of time Beard has been homeless.
Cervantes said the center sees about 30 to 40 self-identified homeless men and women on a monthly basis who work hard to get out of the predicaments they are in.
“Most come to get a hot cup of coffee, use our community phone and computers to find work,” Cervantes said. “I meet the best people here — it’s too bad they’re in such unfortunate situations. They definitely could use more help in the winter.”
• Editor’s note: The name Michele Beard is a pseudonym. Because the woman who spoke for this story has a young son, the Press-Banner has not used her true name.
At a glance
• Mountain Community Resources — 335-6600 — needs rain ponchos, brown and green tarps, sleeping bags, thermal tops and bottoms, beanie hats, gloves, work boots, laundry detergent, Scotchgard fabric protector, duct tape, new socks, flashlight batteries, deodorant, hair products, toothbrushes, toothpaste, combs, feminine products and vouchers for drying clothes at a local laundry shop.
