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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (June 11, 2001)
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Jack continued from page 1 were even without a home — but their eyes are full of a visible devo tion that money cannot buy. “Single fathers are not heard of even in today's culture,” Leavitt said. “Single fathers need help. There is nothing for us.” Leavitt said local churches and homeless shelters, such as the Eu gene Mission, welcome battered women, single mothers and women with substance-abuse problems. But for Leavitt, like many single fa thers in the community, the usual response is that there is no place for him and his daughter, he said. He is supporting Tina on his own, Leavitt said, but it takes a two person income to live comfortably in the current economy. Becoming a single dad Leavitt said his marriage reached a breaking point after three years of verbal abuse. He said he gave up on his wife five months ago after los ing his job in railroad maintenance because she repeatedly showed up at his work drunk and verbally abu sive. Despite time spent with a marriage counselor, Leavitt said his wife picked alcohol over their family. Without a job, Leavitt lost his house, and he and his daughter were forced onto the street, or as he called it — “went camping.” Leavitt and Tina have not always known what to expect or where to go next when they did not have the stability of a home, but they tem porarily found a safe haven for eight weeks at the First Place Fami ly Center. The local shelter pro vides emergency services and ne cessities for homeless families with children. “This program could use a mil lion dollars a year,” Leavitt said. “This program works really hard to keep families together. A program should keep families together.” Tim Rockwell, the assistant di rector at the center, said he has seen an increase in the number of single fathers who need support. Rock well, who has been working to help “broken families” for five years, said the day-use shelter holds up to 10 families for a maximum of 30 days eagh. “We want to work with people,” Rockwell said. “We try to make it a family thing.” He said there is a tendency for shelters in the community to cater to mothers with children, instead of fathers with children. “There is a whole lot more out there forewomen,” Rockwell said. Day-to-day struggles Leavitt’s daily routine usually means waking Tina every morning at 7 a.m. to get her on the bus for kindergarten at Whiteaker Elemen tary School, where she is receiving a bilingual education in Spanish. Then the 48-year-old father puts in four hours of work a day, making Homeless shelters in the summer months Local homeless shelter staff say they often see changes in the populations that use their services over the sum mer. Tim Rockwell, assistant director of First Place Family Center, said more families and homeless people are able to camp outside during the sum mer. “You see a more transient popu lation,” Rockwell said. Rockwell said people passing through Eugene sometimes stop at the center in need of resources because of de lays such as car trouble. He said many people may stay at the center a week or only a day. Rockwell added that he has seen an increase in the amount of young people traveling during the summer. “Sometimes it seems like you have a bigger crowd during the summer,” he said. The warmer weather is an incentive for people to travel more frequently for longer distances, Rockwell said. But during the summer, because fam ilies tend to take vacations, Rockwell said there are not as many volunteers and not as much fundingat local churches where the homeless popula tion takes refuge for meals and lodg ing. In the seven years he has worked for the Eugene Mission, Assistant Director Lynn Antis said people who cometo the shelter often stay for longer peri ods during the winter than they do during the summer. Even though there is a higher turnover within the homeless popula tion during the summer because of the weather, Antis said the staff atthe mission is still busy. “The numbers go down but the work load is just as high,” Antis said. — lisa Toth about $20 an hour doing various jobs wherever he can, such as painting buildings. And when there is no work, Leavitt busies himself fixing up the center, where he works as a volunteer staff mem ber and a client. Leavitt works as a custodian at the center for 10 to 15 hours a week. “Volunteer work gives me some thing to do, something that is prof itable that has meaning to it,” Leav itt said. “It is my way of paying the program back.” Rockwell said Leavitt contributes his time and energy to fixing up the center with a positive attitude and “good people skills.” “Others followed his lead,” Rockwell said. “If he saw some thing that needed to be done, he did it.” Wearing a turquoise-colored, paint-splattered T-shirt, dusty den im jeans and a pair of sneakers, Leavitt’s lean figure is tanned from the sun exposure he receives doing manual labor jobs. He said he has not always had to worry about where he and Tina would sleep from week to week. And it has not been easy for him to become accus tomed to relying on food stamps and a $128 weekly unemployment check. The native Oregonian from North Bend received an education from Trinity Valley Community College in Ontario, Canada. In the early 1970s, he served in the Air Force as a helicopter pilot trainer for more than three years on the Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas. He also spent 11 years as a farm mechanic in Missouri. A house for the future But for now, Leavitt and his daughter are just taking it one day at a time. And after keeping their fingers crossed for months, Leavitt and his daughter have finally found a home through the Connections Transitional Housing program of fered by St. Vincent de Paul of Lane County. Barbara Holman, program man ager for the program, said the feder ally funded program offers 39 fami lies the chance to move off the streets and into a house. “ “The main goal is to help the*, family toward self-sufficiency,” Holman said. On May 10, Leavitt and his daughter moved into a three-bed room house, located in a low-in come housing neighborhood in Springfield. For the next two years, they will be sharing the five-year old house with a single mother who has a daughter the same age as Tina. St. Vincent de Paul’s program will offer Leavitt assistance in pay ing rent for the first four months, while he and his daughter adjust to their new surroundings. After that point, it will be up to Leavitt to make the $450 monthly payments. Leavitt said the house is located on a quiet, safe cul-de-sac, and there are other children in the neighborhood who have become playmates with his daughter. And once school lets out, Leavitt said he will be looking for a full-time, sta ble job. “It is working out well,” he said. Leavitt hopes to find a job at Home Depot and is looking to even tually purchase a car, but he dreamt of much more for his and his daughter’s future. Eventually, Leav itt would like to move to Sonora* Calif., and make his living by pan ning for gold. “I'd like to be on 500 acres,” he said. Leavitt said he would make more than $100 a day “panning and high banking” for the precious metal. “It’s still there,” he said. “Every time there’s an earthquake, more gold comes up.” The future looks to be coming up gold for Leavitt as well. No matter the trade he chooses next, he now has a foundation to build from. Tff-U&llteiin., 1 '"'Z,**-** 1 ; «. . ******^ 1 dan 251 Looking at Dance 4 Credits in the A&L Group • See and Discuss Great Works of Dance Art •Take Field Trips and Movement Laboratories Learning like you’ve never experienced before! NO PREREQUISITES I — HQ EXPERIENCE NECESSARY * _ Zi mj/*« KiBtXl>I^IiTfcxrlL/lTvJMTTl
