Environmentally efficient civic center comes to Long Beach p. 2
Where are the residents of Harbor View House? That was what Linda Martino and Jane Ferrari wanted to talk about when they visited the office of Random Lengths News Nov. 19 — that and the real reasons they had to leave, besides a broken elevator. If the women’s mood seemed urgent, it’s because they were among the 140 residents of Harbor View House who had been given one week to move out, and only two days remained until the Nov. 21 deadline. But this was a week in which everybody was hurrying against a deadline — the Thanksgiving holiday. At RLN, they left their contact information, took our advice to focus on finding shelter and moved on while we wondered if there was a plan in place for when that deadline came. Four days later — two after the deadline — a chance meeting with Ferrari near Harbor View House provided a clue. She was standing outside the historic structure on Beacon Street, but the doors weren’t locked and it didn’t look as though she’d spent the night outside. Inside, tables were stacked and staffers were bustling about. She explained that she’d chosen to sleep in the post office.
“I was given the option to go to a [residential] facility located off Sunset Boulevard near downtown Los Angeles,” Ferrari said. “It was too far from my family. Being up in the hills … is too far from public transportation.” Ferrari’s family, including two grown children, lives in Westchester. Ferrari also reasoned taking the place in Hollywood, she would have left her without easy access to her personal belongings, which were in San Pedro. But this morning she was without many of them, anyway, and her plans for the day involved retrieving them and putting them in storage. “I was told my paintings were left out because they couldn’t fit the moving boxes and they had no answer to what happened to my jewelry,” Ferrari explained. It hasn’t always been like this for Ferrari. “I used to have a car before I came to Harbor View House,” she said, but residents without the means to stay in a board-and-care facility like Harbor View House often have to reduce their income and assets to a level that would qualify [See Harbor View House, p. 4]
December 13 - 19, 2018
Elf: The Musical has charm, failings and one fantastic sequence p. 9
By Terelle Jerricks, Managing Editor
Maersk announces a zero carbon future in 2050 p. 8
Real News, Real People, Really Effective
Former Harbor View House residents from left, Troy Williams, Linda Martino and Jane Ferrari. Photo by Terelle Jerricks
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