Work: the ‘Orange County Dream’ to homeless
August 24th, 2010, 6:01 pm posted by Peggy Lowe
SAN CLEMENTE – Allen Pederson pulls into a parking slot at San Clemente State Beach, hoping he gets a meter with a little time left. Renting by the hour with a few coins is all he can do now. This 1998 white Ford van is Pederson’s real estate reality, 25 square feet he calls “our little apartment.”
Beside Allen is his wife of 21 years, Regina. This was her vehicle, the one she used to drive the couple’s three kids to church, the one with the “Best Mom” license plate frame intact.
It’s sunset on a recent Thursday, and the couple sits down on a park bench on the bluff overlooking the ocean, and Allen jokes that this is his living room. Dinner is from Taco Bell, a tostada, burrito and Diet Coke eating up most of the last $5 Allen had in his wallet.
This is all the Pedersons have left of what Allen called “the Orange County Dream.” They have lost everything since Allen lost his job in 2005, an event that triggered a domino effect of decline for the family, down to being homeless and what Allen admits is now day-to-day survival.
“It’s just kinda like, where did it go? It was just there. It happened so fast! You think, ‘It will never happen to me.’ I think back, how did it happen?” Allen says. “How did this happen?”
The trigger to what the family now simply calls “The Trauma” happened in January 2005, when Allen lost his six-figure job at Time Warner Cable in a downsizing move.
Allen, a transplant from Pontiac, Michigan, started at the company in an entry-level job in 1986. Over the course of 20 years, he worked his way up to Director of Purchasing and Operations. He was a company man and planned to retire there, believing he was safe from any cutbacks. Regina home-schooled the couple’s three children in their Lake Forest home.
“I was living the good life. I had no worries, you know? Buy anything I wanted, just about. Of course, it would be on credit,” he said. “Always had food in the refrigerator. Kids wanted to go to the movies, we’d go to the movies. Kids wanted to go to Disneyland, we’d go to Disneyland.”
After Allen was let go from Time Warner, he took a manager job at an Inglewood Costco, but with the long commute and the low pay, he couldn’t make ends meet. He also wasn’t moving up as quickly as the bosses had promised him, so he quit. It was March 2008, and with his good credentials, he thought he’d find something else quickly.
But the Great Recession had started its stranglehold, with Southern California’s mortgage industry already in meltdown mode, financial markets looking shaky and unemployment beginning to rise.
Allen tried another job, but it didn’t work out, so he spent his days looking for work. By this time, he’d gone through his Time Warner severance, sold the company car he’d been given, and tapped out all other financial avenues. The family lost their home and moved to Temecula to a rental, only to be kicked out of that house when the owner lost it to foreclosure. With the two youngest children along – the oldest had married and moved out — the family settled into a cheap motel in Santa Ana.
Life was tough with just his unemployment checks, but the family got help from a church and local food banks. They were grateful to still be together. Then in May, Allen used up the last of his 99 weeks of benefits, and suddenly, there was zero income. The family moved out of the motel and into the van.
“The crisis that hit was trying to hold a family together,” Allen said.
Because they didn’t want to further traumatize the children, Allen, 46, and Regina, 50, found other places for them to live. Their daughter, now 19 and in beauty school, moved into a friend’s apartment. Their youngest son, now 16, is with a family friend.
Allen and Regina hit the road, and their daily routine is an agonizing agenda of searching for food, shelter, money, sleep. Each morning, Allen heads to a Starbucks, so he can use the free Wi-Fi to search online for jobs. He has no phone, so he signed up for a free Google service with a voicemail-only number. He returns calls from pay phones.
The couple hopscotch around to different parking lots, but are often asked to leave by security guards. Wal-Marts are especially good, because they are never questioned about why they are parked there for hours on-end. They sometimes park at the public beaches, but have to watch for the rangers – Allen calls them “ticket monsters” – who may require them to move after a few hours.
Sometimes they will get food from a local food bank, sometimes they get bits of change from friends or from Allen’s father in Michigan. They’ve maxed out the allowance of rent assistance and food offered by Saddleback Church, where they were members for 10 years and where Regina taught Sunday school. They steer clear of the shelters, which they say are filled with “Skid Row types” – the shelters more scary than even staying on the street. They’ve inquired at some rescue missions, but those are mostly for people with drug and alcohol problems, so the Pedersons don’t qualify.
Allen applied at Target and Wal-Mart, but got no response. He’s walked into a few fast food places, like Jack in the Box and Taco Bell, but managers weren’t interested because he doesn’t speak Spanish. He briefly held a low-paying job at Von’s, but didn’t pass probation. He thinks it’s because he asked too many questions about trying to improve operations.
The couple’s biggest fear is that their van – their only home – will be impounded because their license plate tags are eight months overdue. Just last week, they got a ticket, and combined with a couple parking citations they’ve already racked up, that could also lead to losing their vehicle. To avoid scrutiny, they always back in to parking slots, so the cops can’t see the expired tags. They also worry that the bald back tires will blow at any time and Regina has tried to repair them with bicycle patches.
They spend evenings at the beach, and particularly like San Clemente State Beach because it offers them a little peace. For a while, they would sneak into some of the state parks after hours to use the coin-operated showers, but the rangers recognize them now. Every day is a search for a shower, and some nights they simply wash up in the public restrooms at the beach. They brush their teeth standing behind their van, using a cup of water from a fountain. “I never dreamed in a million years I’d be here. I always considered myself a hard-working, dedicated individual,” Allen said. “I can look in the mirror right now and not believe it. It’s unreal.”
Allen is nervous, fueled with the anxiety brought on by the struggle for survival and lack of sleep. Regina appears to be another loss – they talk openly of her breakdown. She cries constantly and sometimes rambles incoherently. The woman who once prided herself as the best mom – a home school and Sunday school teacher – believes that she has lost her children. The friends her youngest is staying with shield him from her.
On August 12, the couple lost the last of their possessions. Having failed to pay the rental fees, the storage locker they rented in San Juan Capistrano was auctioned off, everything gone during a five-minute bidding process that went to a stranger for $550. Inside were their wedding photos, the children’s school records, toys, family pictures, and the American flag that was draped on Regina’s father’s casket. Since then, Regina’s mental state has further declined, Allen said. She feels betrayed by her family and the friends she helped for so many years. Society has humiliated them, she says. “I feel like I don’t even exist,” she said. “That’s how people make you feel – like you don’t even exist.”
Allen feels if he can just get one good break – just one — they could make it. “Just an opportunity is all I need – no matter what it is,” he said. “I just want to work. I’m not panhandling. I want a job, I want to go to work.”
The couple ended a recent Thursday night much as they have done during all the others these last few months. As the sun set and darkness swallowed up the beach front, they washed up in the public restrooms, put on their pajamas and watched a movie on Allen’s laptop. Then they drove over to a local megachurch and parked in the huge lot, hoping to be inconspicuous until dawn, when they get up and start another day. But time is running out and Allen fears losing their last, precious possession.
“We had a lot of hope,” Allen said. “We had a lot of hope. But that’s kind of drifting away. As every day of the survival continues, the hope becomes less.”
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