Checking in with Jennifer and Julie

“From now on, I'm only going to be here on Friday and Saturday,” said Jennifer, one of the two homeless women who take turns standing by the cinderblock wall outside the Downey main post office.

Julie blows a kiss. Photo by Lorine Parks

“The people of Downey have been so nice to me,” Jennifer said. “I don’t want to burn them out. On other days, I’ll go to another post office.”

In her late 50s with her severely mannish haircut, Jennifer was holding a large fawn-colored parasol, to protect her fine-featured face, already weathered and tan, from the cancerous properties of the May sun. While we spoke, several people stopped to give her some folded green bills, and one asked if she had had lunch. She said she had.

Where does Jennifer see herself in two years?

“I hope I’ll get a job,” she said. “I can do office work, filing, and cleaning. I ask for work because I know I have to help myself. No one is going to do it for me. If they ask me to work, I’ll come.”

“The other woman who stands here” – she meant Julie, the white-haired one who is nearly blind from macular degeneration - “if she needs the money, she can come here. It’s God’s will. God sees everything. So be it.”

Another person stopped to give Jennifer some money and she said as she did to each one, “Thank you, God bless you. And have a nice weekend.”

“I live in my car,” said Jennifer, “and I give rides to people who need them.”

The story here is that there is no new story. The truth is, nothing appears to be happening in Downey on the homeless front.

I checked in with 64-year-old Julie on another day. She was wearing a baggy new plaid flannel shirt that she had been given, in a pink that matched the rims of her eyes. But that’s not the kind of color coordination any woman wants to have.

“Maybe next month,” Julie said when I asked about the Social Security disability insurance checks she expects to receive. She has completed all the paperwork with a social worker, including a recent exam verifying her eye

condition. Julie needs to have someone read these Patriot clippings to her. “They said it’s been delayed again.”

A light breeze ruffled the trees and moved the leaves on the shrubbery around the long government building. Cars on Firestone bustled by. “What would you wish for,” I asked Julie, “if the city of Downey could help? A community shelter, bathrooms, showers?”

“You mean, for all of us, like me?” she said. “Maybe the city could give motel vouchers, for a few nights’ rest.”