A place of stability: Transition home helps unwed mothers
FAIRFIELD — Lanisha Redd paused the conversation to feed her 7-month-old baby, Ha’iden Gabel.
Ha’iden was also teething, and pretty much everything looked good to gnaw on.
“Orajel and baby Tylenol saved my life,” Redd said, laughing.
Mikayla Ballard had her hands full with La Quan Parker Jr., or LJ — a 14-month-old bundle of impish energy — and 4-month-old Sa’ Riah Parker.
Keysha Joseph, who is three months pregnant, watched a bit as the moms fussed, hugged, kissed their kids and said “no” numerous times to a smiling LJ. Not afraid to jump in herself, she helped both moms wrangle their kids and keep them satisfied in a swing or with a pacifier.
It could be a mom group, as the three obviously have a tight bond and get along well together, but instead, the three are in a small transitional home for homeless teen moms or pregnant teens, most previously in foster care.
It’s a place none of them ever imagined they’d be.
“I feel depressed sometimes,” said Redd, 19, who is originally from Sacramento. ”I think of how my old life could have turned out.”
A former 4.0 student who was active in high school weightlifting and volleyball, she now wistfully calls herself a “stereotype.”
“I’m African-American, a teen mom, unmarried (and I) dropped out of school,” she said. “That’s basically the stereotype.”
And, she added, “homeless.”
Located in a well-kept, middle-class area of Fairfield, Children In Need Of Hugs has given all three a feeling of stability and safety that they’ve lacked in their short years. Ballard is 19, and Joseph is 18. None of their stories are pretty.
“(The community) just looks at a teen mom and thinks ‘another teen mom,’ ” said Lorraine Hargrave, executive director. “If you can dig deeper . . . a lot of people don’t know how abused they’ve been.”
Meet Mikayla Ballard
On Ballard’s second birthday, her mother was shot during a drug-involved event and paralyzed from the waist down.
Ballard landed in foster care soon after that. She also lived with various family members and was abused. When she tried to report the abuse to a family member, she was give the choice to shut up or move out.
She’s been in 27 different homes, 10 high schools and a total of 16 schools, but managed to graduate pretty much on time, even while in the late stages of pregnancy. She’s originally from East Oakland but went to both Rodriguez and Sem Yeto high schools.
Winding up homeless with two children, she hooked up with First Place For Youth, a program for those aging out of foster care that helps them find housing and jobs. Unable to take the requisite class because of daycare issues, she thought about staying at a homeless shelter but didn’t like what she saw when she went there.
Instead she found Hargrave’s program.
“I was happy because my kids have some place to go,” she said.
Meet Lanisha Redd
Family fights and alleged physical abuse punctuated Redd’s life.
Redd was doing well in school until fighting in the family, some of it physical, took its toll on her. Her dad and stepmother fought a lot. She said the fights seemed to center around her, so she carried the unspoken burden of blame. She ran away twice and the second time found herself scared, homeless and on the streets at 17.
After aging out of a receiving home at age 18, she went to Wind Youth Center in Sacramento, a facility for homeless youths that offers shelter, education and meals and where she enrolled in Job Corps.
Finding herself pregnant from her boyfriend after the requisite blood and urine tests for the program, she hurriedly finished the program along with earning her general education diploma. But after a brief stint living with her father, who was divorced from her stepmom at this time, she was homeless, jobless and had a baby. Alleged drug use and physical abuse kept her away from the baby’s father.
Referrals led her to the transitional home in Fairfield.
“I just see all the opportunities I’m being given,” she said. “It’s really teaching me that if I want something I have to go out and get it on my own.
“I can’t wait for someone to bring me that silver spoon.”
Meet Keysha Joseph
Joseph’s mother abandoned her in a motel room with a man when she was 1 month old.
The young longtime Fairfield resident was in foster care from the time she was 1 until she was 5. She was adopted at that point, but she didn’t get her “happily ever after.” Joseph didn’t feel wanted in the home, and when the two adopted parents split up she ran away to Southern California to live with her adopted father. She eventually came back and went to a local high school. She was kicked out of her home last spring as a minor and went to live with her boyfriend, who she alleges eventually became abusive.
She was scheduled for Marine Corps boot camp on Aug. 22. Learning she was pregnant temporarily derailed those plans, she said. Pregnant with no place to go, she found Children In Need of Hugs through a Planned Parenthood affiliate.
The three articulate young women came together in the last few weeks at the transition home run by Hargrave, herself a one-time teen mom.
Hargrave got pregnant at 15, but living in San Francisco she had a variety of resources available, she said. When her daughter, then a student at Armijo High School, approached her about a couple of pregnant friends, the fact that there were no facilities other than Planned Parenthood for teen moms sparked an idea that she worked to fruition.
Hargrave got her nonprofit status in 2001 and took in her first teen mom a few months later. The home’s main funding is through a Department of Health and Human Services federal grant that allows Hargrave to hire caseworkers and a counselor on site. The competitive grant ends in October 2012, but Hargrave can reapply.
The young women — 20 and younger — usually come from referrals from a variety of places, including Planned Parenthood. The 18-month program offers supportive services plus teaches them family planning, parenting, budgeting, nutrition, cooking and life-skills training.
School or employment is a must. Redd and Ballard are enrolled in online classes at the University of Phoenix. Joseph is looking for a job. Child care is not provided, and a strict curfew is in place.
“We don’t run a flop house,” said Sharon Blakey, one of the home’s five caseworkers, with a smile. “We tell them they have to be motivated. We want them to know that they are young adults.”
Motivated they seem to be. Redd, Ballard and Joseph are determined to make a better life for themselves and their children.
“I will do anything and everything to keep my kids safe and with me,” Ballard said.
Reach Susan Winlow at 427-6955 or swinlow@dailyrepublic.net.
Short URL: http://www.dailyrepublic.com/?p=88648
Posted by Susan Winlow
on Sep 21 2011.
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Lorraine is such a wonderful woman. I am so glad C.I.N.O.H has helped so many young woman & I am proud to say I am one of those woman. The lord is truly blessing lorraine to be strong & to be able to help these girls. All the current woman in the house and the ones to come I wish you & your children the best. God Bless!!