KOLD News 13 live, local and late breaking-People looking for food and shelter flood local agency

People looking for food and shelter flood local agency

By Barbara Grijalva - email

TUCSON, AZ (KOLD) - About 150 people line up at the Primavera Foundation offices every morning, looking for help...from food to shelter.

Primavera has up to 30 families on the waiting list for emergency housing.

Primavera Chief Development Officer Deborah Dale says, "They're looking for housing. They're looking for jobs,. they're looking for, sometimes, bus passes to get to interviews or doctors' appointments."

More families than ever are in the lines at Primavera.

"Job losses. Also the foreclosure crisis.  And so they really are at wit's end. They're in their cars.  They're looking for shelter," Dale says.

Many families truly are living in their cars.

We met a man and his sister who live in their car that is filled with all their possessions.

The man did not want to be seen on camera because he is applying for jobs and doesn't want prospective employers to know he's homeless.  

A woman asking for help is finding herself homeless for the first time.

Karen Michenovich's fiancee lost his job.

She's worried about being on the streets.  

"Being outside in this cold weather.  Just being homeless period. I'm a hard worker out looking for work. So is he.  So we're doing all we can. That is a big fear, being out there , especially in a large city like this. It's not safe," says Michenovich.  

Primavera helps as many as it can, but it turns away many more because shelters are bursting at the seams and there are too few jobs for the people who can work.

But there's one need most shelters are not even close to meeting.

"I'm a single dad and I have this baby and we've fallen upon hard times," says Attila Streyar as he holds his toddler daughter, Layla.

"I needed some help, just to get shelter. There was no place in this town that I could find that takes care of men with children by themselves," Streyar says.

Streyar can't hold back tears as he tells his story.

Primavera workers say they have the only emergency shelters that will take single dads and their children, and entire families without splitting them up.

But for a short time, at least, Attila Streyar and his daughter will stay at one of two motels Primavera uses for temporary family shelters.

It's where Johnny Green and his wife Misty and three children are staying for 30 days.

They moved to Tucson to be close to Misty's father who has cancer, but there are no jobs.

The Greens still are looking for the American Dream.

For now, a motel room will have to do.

"I want to be able to support my family, to give them a home and for them to be happy," says Johnny Green.

The entire Green family actually has slept in their SUV. 

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