Tuesday, July 31, 2012

New Home for Ashley

Each set-up is different, as we all know, and our latest decorating gig was at Venice Community Housing's Transitional Living Center.  The turnover rate at the TLC has been fairly slow of late, but Carmen Navarro's (resident social worker for VCH) recent email indicated that this will be changing shortly.  There are a number of vacant units and incoming moms are now going through the interview stage before [hopefully] being allocated a space.  They cannot be too careful with this intake process, as experience has taught them some hard lessons.

A young mom of 25, Ashley, was moving in with her three children:  two little girls, Taliyah (almost 8) and Tanyia (almost 6) and their little brother, 2 1/2 y.o. Ashten.  Ashley is going back to school in September so there was a request for a backpack and school supplies. Karen had washed and spot-cleaned a donated backpack, so we were happy to give that to her.  We also found many nice clothes and toys for the three children which always makes us happy. (Catherine Grasso brought some extra things for the girls which were much appreciated.)

Ashley has been looking for housing for quite some time and her little boy has had some health issues.  He was born blind in his left eye and has recently had surgery to give the eye more stability.  So, with all this mom has had on her plate, we wanted to make their bedroom extra nice.  That's right...bedroom.  Remember, this is the TLC at Venice and each family is allocated only one bedroom and bathroom and they share the kitchen and living room space.  Kitted out with a bunk bed and one single bed, the space was tight but after getting some VCH helpers to move the furniture around, it felt larger.  Little Ashten, we were told, is still sharing a bed with his mom, no doubt because of his recent health issues, though I do think they could probably use a toddler bed pretty soon (if anyone has one, let us know!).

This move was a little more complicated than normal because we also delivered some furniture for TLC resident, Emily Varges, who is happily moving into her own apartment.  Ildy Lewis kindly drove her pick-up truck with items she donated to Emily: a  great bookcase, coffee table, end table and two nice dining chairs. Thanks, Ildy.

With the space issues always a factor at Venice, it is tougher to get a really pretty look, but I think this turned out pretty well.  Here are some photos from the day.


Here is Ildy, her truck loaded, with our great storage bin in the background.


Bunk beds for the girls with coordinated bedspreads.


It can never be too purple or pink for little girls, right!?


This is the Mom's single bed which she is sharing with little Ashten


Age-appropriate books for the children


Tight space


The shots below are of the shared kitchen space





1 comment:

  1. What a wonderful and worthwhile cause. Thank you for all that you guys do!

    ReplyDelete