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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
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