Westside
Coalition Celebrates Success
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By Anita Varghese
Staff Writer
October 15 -- Celebrating
the success of homeless individuals
who turned their lives around was
a good enough reason for more than
450 representatives from government,
business, social service and religion
to wake up early Friday morning.
The Westside Shelter and Hunger Coalition presented
its 12th annual Celebrating Success: Changing
Lives and Revitalizing Our Communities breakfast
at the Fairmont Miramar’s Starlight Ballroom,
studded with many starry volunteers from a bright
galaxy of homeless service providers.
“This event is a wonderful opportunity
to display the hard work and dedication of so
many people,” said Lisa Fisher, director
of the Westside Coalition, a group of more than
30 social service agencies, faith congregations
and supporting organizations that wants to end
homelessness through service coordination, education
and advocacy.
Westside Coalition members work together to provide
a continuum of care for homeless and low-income
individuals and families through a cost-effective
and cooperative infrastructure that includes servicing
the needs of subgroups of the homeless population.
Subgroups such as veterans, battered women and
youth as well as families and individuals with
mental illness, addiction or HIV/AIDS are in need
of specialized care from multiple homeless service
providers to first get off the streets, maintain
a treatment schedule and then stay in stable housing,
service providers said.
“Each of today’s honorees proves
that there is a way to end homelessness when we
all work together to provide the support and resources
needed to rebuild lives,” Fisher said.
Volunteers, businesses and organizations honored
with community support awards were Snyder Diamond,
Ralph Saltsman and Stephen Solomon, Chapman and
Associates, Unitarian Universalist Community Church,
Union Bank of California, Shoshana Wayne Gallery,
Bel Air Presbyterian Church, School on Wheels,
Scentiments Flowers, Volunteers of America, Pepperdine
University Villa Graziadio Executive Center and
Kehillat Israel.
Robin Gee, manager of Santa Monica’s CityTV
received the Partnership Award in recognition
of her contributions to the Westside Coalition’s
public relations committee and for CityTV’s
It’s Your Call: Homeless in Our Community,
an eight-week live call-in show broadcast in Santa
Monica and Los Angeles.
Awards in the categories of advocacy, education,
employment, giving back and overcoming multiple
barriers were presented to 24 previously homeless
individuals.
James Whitener received the advocacy award along
with W. Ernest Gutman, Matthew Lord and Moses
Walker.
Whitener is an active member of the Edelman Mental
Health Center’s client advisory board after
being a client himself since 2004.
He was the only child of a mother who worked
12-hour days. With an absent mother, he took care
of himself by cooking his own meals, doing the
laundry and getting ready at bedtime.
In 1997, he suffered bouts of severe depression
following a divorce, unemployment and loss of
housing.
He was homeless for nine years until he moved
into his own apartment in December 2006 after
receiving services from Edelman, Venice Family
Clinic and Turning Point.
“Remember this,” Whitener said. “We
are to have our vision to the sky so we will be
raised up from below.”
The education award was given to Steve Keesal,
Sarah Moore, Veronica Sanchez and April Thompson.
Sanchez is a full-time student at Santa Monica
College and secured Section 8 housing for herself
and her three children.
She received mental health counseling and medication
from the Didi Hirsch Mental Health Center and
more services from OPCC, Step Up on Second and
Daniel’s Place, Upward Bound and Saint John’s
Health Center.
She was homeless from birth to age nine with
her family and homeless again between age 16 and
23, the second time on her own or with her children.
Despite spending 16 of her 25 years of life in
homelessness and lacking stability and parental
support, Sanchez had managed to graduate from
high school and attend some college classes before
seeking assistance from the Didi Hirsh Center.
“I actually found that because of being
homeless, because of my experiences, I have a
much clearer goal for the future,” Sanchez
said.
Her goal is to develop and run a transitional
housing program for young women.
Receiving employment awards were Winfield Bickley,
Karen Hawkes, Jai Hilton, Ria Klempner, Tony Miller
and Randall Taylor.
After six prison terms and homelessness since
he was age 18, Randall Taylor now has a permanent
job as a Snyder Diamond parts specialist.
He received substance abuse treatment from the
Clare Foundation, medical services from Venice
Family Clinic and job readiness assistance from
Chrysalis.
Through Chrysalis, Taylor obtained a temp-to-hire
position as a warehouse clerk at Snyder Diamond
until his likable personality enabled him to get
the parts specialist promotion.
“Don’t quit and keep your dreams
alive,” he said. “Anything is possible
if you put your mind to it. Have faith and believe
in yourself.”
Danny Loughlin, Mario Sanders, Rodney Sexton
and Melvin Taylor (not related to Randall Taylor)
received giving back awards.
Melvin Taylor is now an artist, writer, motivational
speaker and Turning Point volunteer after receiving
assistance from Edelman, OPCC, Saint Joseph Center,
Venice Family Clinic, Westside Center for Independent
Living and the Santa Monica Housing Authority.
He had lived in his car after several setbacks
in his life since he was age 15: underage smoking
and drinking, dropping out of high school, abusing
hard drugs, two divorces and a seven-year prison
sentence.
“We must become the change for others to
know hope is alive,” Melvin Taylor said.
Awards for overcoming multiple barriers were
given to Ann Rebecca Balter, June Cigar, Johnny
Haro, Mirya Royal and Robert Thompson.
Balter’s father, Allan Balter, wrote or
produced episodes of many television shows such
as Lost in Space, Mission: Impossible, Shaft,
The Six Million Dollar Man and Voyage to the Bottom
of the Sea.
He died when Balter was two. Her mother subsequently
developed depression, which led to substance abuse
and suicide by jumping off of a 14-story building.
In her early career as an artist and stylist,
Balter was surrounded by movie industry players
and the drug culture they brought with them.
She later became addicted to opiate painkillers
during a year of hospitalization after a man assaulted
her in 1987, causing her to fall 47 feet from
a building and break numerous bones.
When she was released from the hospital, she
spent two years homeless in a wheelchair and learned
to walk again after eight years.
But she had developed a more serious addiction
to drugs, moved to Las Vegas and was homeless
on and off until 2006.
Friends searched for her and talked her into
getting counseling from the Tarzana Treatment
Center and the Clare Foundation.
Balter also received services from Chrysalis,
Edelman and the Venice Family Clinic. She is now
a professional painter, Clare volunteer, mother
to one daughter and grandmother to two grandchildren.
“Walking the roads of homelessness to recovery
builds character, strength and gratitude,”
Balter said.
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