Costa Mesan provides motivation and much more

Michael Miller

The first time Elsie Maurizi met Chris Byrd she wondered just what he

was doing in her house.

She was in the kitchen of her home in Costa Mesa and saw him on

her computer, said Maurizi, 53, a self-employed antique seller and

mother of three. She remembered their exchange.

“Who are you?” she said, and “Where are you from?”

Her question turned out to have a complex answer. Byrd was a

friend of Maurizi’s son, Gary, and had come to their house looking

for a place to crash. During the 16 years before that night, Byrd’s

life had provided little in the way of consistent beds; he moved from

one relative’s house to another, wound up for a time at Orangewood

Children’s Home in Orange, slept on friends’ couches and in cars.

This time, though, he had knocked on the right door. Over the past

decade, Maurizi has sheltered, fed and mentored more than 20 youths,

most of them friends of her children who needed advice or a bed.

After her initial meeting with Byrd, Maurizi kept a close watch on

him, enrolling him back in school and ultimately taking him as her

foster son.

Today, he will join three of his current and former housemates --

Gary Maurizi, Keola Akana and Fara Botzheim -- in graduating from

Monte Vista High School.

“They give you the work,” Byrd, 18, said about the alternative

school. “It’s all about how much motivation you have. I told Elsie,

‘If I don’t do my homework, yell at me.’ And she did.”

Whatever prodding Maurizi may have used, it worked. All four of

her graduating seniors plan to attend Orange Coast College in the

fall, after years when many of them thought they would never make it

out of school.

Akana, 18, ventured to Costa Mesa after struggling at a regular

high school in Yucaipa; Maurizi, a friend of his mother, sheltered

him this winter. Botzheim, 19, who lived at Maurizi’s for a time

before moving back with her mother and sister, works full time to pay

her family’s rent.

Maurizi said that the majority of children she takes in are

bright, artistic and troubled -- and Monte Vista is the perfect

location for them.

The school, located within earshot of the 55 Freeway in Costa

Mesa, requires students to attend only two hours a week, and lets

them do the rest of their studies at home.

Many Monte Vista students are in special education or have medical

or behavioral problems, but some are merely independent learners who

prefer to work at their own pace, said Deborah Davis, Monte Vista

principal.

Into this small campus, which also houses the continuation Back

Bay High School, Maurizi has brought 19 children over the years.

Every week she drives her current tenants to the school and then

bides her time, volunteering in the office or cleaning shelves, while

they meet with teachers.

She has become such a fixed presence at the school that

administrators refer to her proteges as “Elsie’s kids.”

Davis views Maurizi as an activist as much as a guardian. A few

years ago, Maurizi lobbied successfully to put a full-time special

education teacher on campus, after the school had made do with one

for only two days a week.

“That’s how I first met Elsie,” Davis said. “She was very involved

in special education here, and we’ve changed it a lot. The way it was

being done wasn’t very good for the kids.”

Maurizi is no stranger to disabilities; all three of her own

children are special-needs students, and Botzheim overcame a speech

impediment in elementary school.

However troubled her charges may be, though, Maurizi handles them

in a businesslike way. Anyone who stays at her home must follow three

rules: no drugs, no lying, and mandatory school.

Otherwise, the atmosphere in the cluttered Costa Mesa home is

downright familial.

“It’s a kick-back-and-relax sort of thing,” Akana said. “You do

chores every other day -- dishes, vacuuming, and so on.”

Maurizi learned her charitable values early in life.

Her father, who once ran a secondhand store on Newport Boulevard,

often helped neighbors and even strangers who were down on their

luck.

Once, Maurizi said, he met a man lifting boxes at an auction and

brought him home, gave him a change of clothes and made him manager

of the family’s trailer park.

“It’s expensive to do it,” she admitted. “We never had a lot to

give, but we did what we could.”

In sheltering and mentoring children, Maurizi has had moments of

triumph, but not all of her cases have ended smoothly.

One of her first tenants, who fled his father to live with Maurizi

about seven years ago, eventually moved back home and fell into drugs

and prison.

The last Maurizi heard of him, he had a child of his own and was

going back to college.

She fears that another of her former guests, who was

half-Indonesian, may have returned to his native land and died in the

tsunami.

For others, though, the future looks brighter.

On Tuesday evening, Maurizi, her son and foster son sat back in

the living room of her house, taking a breather two days before

commencement.

Amid the big-screen television, fish tank and used furniture

lining the tiny room, a large rack of photographs by the door showed

the faces of people who had stayed in the house -- some Maurizi’s

children, some current guests, some long gone. Cradled in one of the

time-worn chairs, Byrd reflected on his last four years.

“I’m going to have a diploma in my hand this Thursday,” he said.

“Wow. That feels good.”