Shop Gives Shelter a Boost : Facility: A YWCA thrift store, stocked with donated items and staffed almost entirely by volunteers, helps provide funding for the 19-room Hotel for Homeless Women.

SANTA ANA —  Marion Jasieniecki bought a piece of carry-on luggage for $4. Rodney Banner was in the market for relics from the 1920s and ‘30s. And Veronica Amezcua came looking for a carpet and some furniture.

All three were on a recent hunt for good deals at this city’s newest thrift store. What they inadvertently did in addition was help assure the survival of the YWCA’s Hotel for Homeless Women, the only facility of its kind in the county.

Welcome to Y’s Buys, a thrift shop with a mission.

“Hopefully this will help cushion expenses,” said Sandi Weber, one of the store’s founders.

Opened in 1987, the 19-room hotel harks back to a time when practically all YMCAs and YWCAs offered shelter to people in need. That was more than 100 years ago during the Industrial Revolution when the early YWCAs catered primarily to single women moving from the farms to the cities. Many of the shelters survived until the mid-1960s when the cost of operating them became prohibitive.

In Santa Ana, however, where the local YWCA had operated since 1924 without a shelter, interest in opening one was awakened in the early 1980s with the rapid increase in the number of homeless people wandering the streets.

“We had women coming to us with no place to live and needing support services,” said Mary Douglas, the YWCA’s executive director.

To help solve the problem, the YWCA built the residential facility at its headquarters on Broadway. A two-story structure with long, soft-white hallways and cozy, double-occupancy rooms resembling those of a real hotel, the facility operates more like a shelter than a hotel. Specifically, it allows about 350 needy women a year from all over the county to stay free for up to 60 days. In addition to providing beds, the YWCA offers meals, job counseling, training and recreation.

But operating the shelter costs about $275,000 a year, according to Douglas. Until recently, most of that money came from city grants, as well as a combination of private and corporate donations. Then last spring, she said, the contributions began drying up because of the sour economy during a period when requests for shelter were increasing dramatically.

As a result, Douglas said, the women’s hotel is now about $30,000 in the hole--a debt that is increasing daily.

Late last month, YWCA officials opened the Y’s Buys thrift shop to help turn that around. Located in a 9,000-square-foot building on Main Street across the street from the hotel, the thrift shop is stocked with donated items and staffed almost entirely by volunteers. Many of them are hotel residents, each of whom is required to donate at least four hours of work per week.

“Working here keeps my mind occupied,” said Bertha Becerra, who was homeless for nearly a year before moving to the women’s hotel a month ago. “It’s interesting; I help myself and I help the other women.”

Said Alice Ghazarosian, another resident/volunteer: “The hotel helps me, and I help the hotel.”

Though on an inner-city street near three other thrift shops, organizers say, the YWCA shop hopes to establish an identity all its own.

“We want to offer upscale thrift at a moderate price,” said Weber, who coordinates the thrift shop’s volunteers. “(We want it to be) like a department store; it doesn’t smell, and nothing is dirty or needs repair.”

Some customers seemed to share that assessment last week as they wandered between rows of pants, dresses and coats or perused shelves covered by everything from the usual assortment of used books and dishes to a gourmet barbecue cooker and several old typewriters.

“The place is laid out well,” said Rodger Imlay, 54, who, though now homeless, said he once worked at another thrift shop. “They have a nice variety of stuff, and it’s clean.”

Amezcua, a mother of two who lives in the neighborhood, said, “They have good prices, good things and good people.”

Since opening three weeks ago, organizers say, the shop has attracted about 200 customers a week who have purchased items ranging from five-cent pieces of hardware and cooking utensils to a bathroom sink with a toilet paper holder and matching wall lights for $275.

Still, Douglas said, the thrift store alone will not generate enough money to save the hotel for the homeless. At best, she said, the store will net $10,000 a month during its first year of operation. With an additional $125,000 in promised grants and contributions, she said, the hotel is still facing a projected deficit of about $100,000 by the end of next year.

“Raising money was always hard work,” Douglas said, “but now we’re really struggling. (The thrift store) is only part of the answer; we still need contributions. How to keep providing our services--that’s the real dilemma.”

Shelter and Shop Purchases at the YWCA’s thrift store help support the nearby home for homeless women.