Publication Date: Wednesday, December 03, 2003
...Anyone's grandmother
...Anyone's grandmother
(December 03, 2003) by Sue Dremann
Elaine Gondring could be anyone's grandmother. The diminutive retired Central Valley schoolteacher exudes a sweet perkiness that makes one want to give her a hug and take her home.
Gondring, 80, has no home. She spends her days on the streets of Palo Alto -- living proof that no matter who you are or what your station is in life, homelessness happens.
Although she holds the trademark cardboard sign requesting donations, she doesn't fade into the shadows like a dusty apparition, the near-invisibility so common among the homeless population in the urban landscape.
Intelligence radiates from her face; an alert self-awareness makes her stand out as though she just arrived today and can't quite figure out how she got here.
Gondring holds a master's degree in socioeconomics. She worked for 30 years in schools on the edge of labor camps for seasonal workers near Patterson. She owned her home in Modesto.
Teaching the children of migrant laborers, she saw first-hand the effects of chronic poverty on people's lives. Patterson school district officials told the Weekly they recalled her in the district.
She never thought she'd end up homeless herself.
"It's downright embarrassing," she said, shivering on a University Avenue corner on a chilly Saturday morning, Big Game Day in Palo Alto.
As cars inched toward Stanford Stadium for the game against Cal -- her alma mater a lifetime ago -- Gondring recounted how she wound up on the street, alongside a array of other homeless persons, each with a history from simple bad luck to mental illness and drug or alcohol addiction. Her fellow homeless range from the neat and threadbare to the tattered and filthy.
Six years ago, battling colon cancer, the surgery and expensive treatment exceeded her medical coverage. When the insurance ran out, Gondring sold her home to help cover the hospital bill. She managed to pay off all but $2,600, she said.
"I did a stupid thing. Being a school teacher, I should've known better. I'd worked with people on socioeconomic issues. I saw what (poverty) did to their lives.
"I should've paid the hospital $10 a month or something, but I paid the $2,600 in a lump sum. Then I didn't have any money left to pay my rent."
Gondring receives Medicare benefits and has a teachers' pension, but it's not enough to establish her in a home -- coming up with a deposit and first-and-last-months' rent is a huge barrier.
"It's kind of a funny life," she said of her predicament. A San Joaquin Valley native, Gondring first took to the streets in Modesto in the spring of 2002. She had just lost her home. She slept in the back of a church.
She wound up in Palo Alto in September when a bus she was traveling on from San Francisco stopped abruptly, injuring a number of passengers, Gondring among them.
Anticipating a settlement from the bus company for her injuries, she says she would like to move to "a retirement place." But she doubts the settlement will be enough to cover costs.
Her only child, a daughter, recently arrived from Dallas to help Gondring get her finances in order despite her own limited resources. For two weeks Gondring will have a room at the Craig Hotel in downtown Palo Alto.
Moving to Dallas with her daughter is a possibility, but Dallas is a long way from Modesto, and Gondring, a Californian born and bred, doubts she would be happy anywhere else. She also wants to maintain her independence, and perhaps get back to the Modesto area.
But as a cold wind whips under her thin jacket, she's weighing her options.
"My mother said to me, 'God don't give you more than you can bear.' But I don't know. I'm on this street corner."
Passers-by place change in her plastic beverage container. A stunned-looking, partially paralyzed woman in a wheelchair approached. Despite a sign in her lap that read, "Homeless. Please donate anything you can," the wheelchair-bound woman handed Gondring a dollar from her own pocket.
Gondring reflected on a failed medical and social system -- one that lets taxpaying citizens who have grown ill and elderly slip through the cracks onto the streets.
"I don't know the answer," she said.
Sue Dremann is a staff writer and calendar editor at the Weekly. She can be e-mailed at sdremann@paweekly.com.
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