An uprooted family finds its footing

They met in Vegas. He was a security guard in a budget hotel casino just doing his job. Swamp cooler in your room not working, Miss? Try this room over here.

Before long, Darrell Dudley and Dana Sowers got to talking, and then to dating, and not long after that she started working there as a maid. He worked the night shift and she worked days; they took turns watching the kids Sowers had from a previous relationship.

But the Las Vegas they knew was not the one of movie sets and brochures; it was a city full of gangs and drugs and prostitution.

"I saw no future for my kids," Sowers says. "I thought, I'm either gonna raise a drug dealer or a prostitute. And I didn't want that for my kids."

And when her sunny-faced son burst in the door one day and said the boys outside were aiming to beat him up, she told herself: I can't do this anymore.

That's how the couple, seven years engaged, ended up miles from a city they'd lived in for years, bounced from a friend's Federal Way house into an extended-stay motel in Kent.

Now, with the help of Family Services, one of 13 agencies aided by The Seattle Times Fund For The Needy, they have a place to call their own — and, more important, a chance to build a foundation to ensure that things stay that way.

Family Services, a 115-year-old Seattle agency focused on long-term solutions to issues challenging families, was recognized by the national Alliance for Children and Families with an "Agency of the Year" award.

Along with housing services, the agency runs a child-care center for homeless kids, a domestic-violence program and a for-profit mental-health-services arm, contracting with 400 companies to provide employee counseling.

The agency's housing-services efforts are part of a citywide 10-year program to end homelessness. The idea: not only put a roof over people's heads but provide them with resources such as job training, child care and counseling for legal, financial and emotional concerns.

"You can't just have housing and put families in there and say, 'Survive,' " says the agency's Patricia Gray.

Family Services takes a therapeutic approach, helping families resolve the root causes of their situations.

More homeless families

The number of homeless families here and nationwide has grown over the past two decades. While primary factors have been domestic violence or mental-health issues, Gray says, "the big reason we're seeing a dramatic increase is the disparity between the cost of living and the minimum wage. They don't have the training to get higher than minimum-wage jobs."

For low-skilled single moms, getting by is virtually impossible considering it takes a job paying 2.5 times the minimum wage to afford a one-bedroom apartment, Gray says.

This year, an annual one-night count of homeless in King County totaled 7,839 — 800 of them below the age of 6 — but some advocates believe the figure could be as high as 12,000.

That's why Family Services has set a goal to end or prevent homelessness for 5,000 families in 10 years, part of an overall county effort.

Dudley, 47, and Sowers, 29, didn't live out of their car or sleep in the streets, so they resist thinking of themselves as such, but homeless is what they were: rootless, untethered. Without a home.

The friend in Federal Way had just had a baby and also had an elderly grandmother and disabled aunt. She knew Sowers and her family wanted out of Vegas, so she asked if they would come out to help.

For the kids — Dominic, 12; Denisha, 11; Tairra, 8; and Vanessa, 7 — it was one more chapter of impermanence.

Braided Denisha remembers a long drive through the desert, crates and boxes in a U-Haul, desert hares scampering across the highway and poking their heads out from their holes.

The house, it turns out, was falling apart and the landlord, Sowers says, wouldn't fix anything.

Her friend had a home nurse helping with the baby, and it was she who told them about Family Services. The agency puts qualified families — screened according to factors such as income and criminal background — in temporary housing, where they can stay for up to two years with the goal of moving into subsidized permanent housing.

Being deemed ready for temporary housing also means being ready to work with case workers like Hazel Moraleja. She makes it her job to know families well, talking about such personal issues as budgeting, marital problems, community living and parenting.

Such relationships are not easily formed: "These are people who've been through crisis," she says. "They may not be ready to trust you."

Counselor and landlord

So Moraleja evokes a mix of counselor and landlord, dropping by once a week, guiding families through the obstacles keeping them from permanent housing, helping them form a plan. The goal: to get families ready to be stable.

"You don't want to put them there too quickly," the agency's Gray says. "Families are going through a lot of trauma. Sometimes the most basic decisions can be hard if you have nothing to hold onto."

Once families reach permanent housing, Moraleja and other case managers follow up with them for six months. Those still in crisis are referred to Family Services' eviction-avoidance program.

As much as the agency is accomplishing, a waiting list remains.

"We know there are families sleeping in cars out there, not being helped," Gray says. They're lying low, afraid their children will be taken by Child Protective Services; they're couch-surfing, doubling up in apartments, jumping from place to place, not always in the safest of environments.

Early this year, Sowers, Dudley and the kids landed at Croft Place, a housing development operated by nonprofit Delridge Neighborhoods Development Association, in one of seven units devoted to transitional housing.

In between they'd moved to a hotel and to other temporary housing. Most of their possessions mysteriously hemorrhaged away in the hands of strangers. "It was just material things, so we didn't worry about it too much," Dudley says.

A bed, a couch, a chair, dressers all came with the help of their new neighbors, things people were looking to get rid of. The TVs came from Goodwill.

Croft Place's mix of mostly African-American, white and African families gather for zoo outings, trick-or-treating and scavenger hunts.

Dudley, grateful to have a place to live, embraced the complex's community-work requirements, joining Croft Place's beautification and emergency-preparedness committees.

A busy place

Meanwhile, the family's home has become a hub for resident kids. "When Dana first came in, she didn't know if she'd like it," Moraleja says. "Now she knows everybody. All the kids are at her house."

"It's like one big family," Sowers says. "If I had the choice, I wouldn't leave. I love it here. We all look after each other."

With Family Services' guidance, Dudley has gotten full-time work as a security guard. Sowers has dealt with some health issues that were dragging her down and has her mind set on a GED and nursing school.

Though they have up to two years to live at Croft Place, they've already applied for permanent housing in Ballard.

Their goal? Stability. A life where they don't move unless they want to, where the kids don't jump from school to school.

Sowers never realized how close they were to the edge until it happened. "You never know," she says. "... If you don't save up, and you don't know what the next day brings ... anything can happen."

Marc Ramirez: 206-464-8102 or mramirez@seattletimes.com