SELFLESS RESIDENTS FIGHT HOMELESSNESS ON ALL FRONTS VOLUNTEERS AND COUNSELORS WORK AGAINST VALLEY HOMELESSNESS IN WAYS AS INDIVIDUAL AS THEY ARE FORMERLY HOMELESS WOMAN OVERCOMES HER OWN OBSTACLES TO HELP OTHERS.

Byline: Stories and photos by Jason Kandel Valley News Writer

Patricia Bothuel has dedicated her life to reaching out and helping the homeless and down on their luck in the San Fernando Valley.

From a clinic in North Hollywood, Bothuel helps some of the more than 164,000 people who funnel through the nonprofit Northeast Valley Health Corporation clinic every year.

Bothuel provides comprehensive primary and preventive care, and acts as a case manager to help people get off the streets and lead a more stable life.

``I do enjoy it,'' she said. ``I enjoy seeing people finally get results because that I do understand.''

She understands because she's been there. Born in 1969 in Detroit, to a father she met once when she was 8 years old, she spent much of her life living with her mom in Detroit and her stepfather in Los Angeles.

She spent much of her early life running from abusive relationships with men. At one point, she lived in a shelter with her mother.

She dropped out of high school. She had her first daughter when she was 17. Her baby girl was conceived at the Weingart Center on Skid Row. She spent seven years being homeless on and off, eventually with five children in tow, now ages 4 to 19. One of her children suffers from a degenerative neurological disorder.

From 2003 to 2004, the family lived out of a Plymouth Voyager in the Vermont area of Los Angeles.

Today, she looks back at the experience as family bonding, and said her children were well fed and thought they were on vacation even though she slept in the driver's seat and the kids were cramped, ``overlapped in the back.''

She lived on $200-a-month child-support checks, and the kids never missed school.

She said she tried desperately to find shelter for her family but obstacles blocked her way. ``They won't let you bring a boy 13 or over. My son was just turning 13. I was upset.''

She called Social Security, the Housing Authority, welfare. No luck.

``It was embarrassing to have to say it. But it was even more embarrassing that I had all the kids with me being homeless. Those are my children. I don't want to be homeless with my kids. I've been trying to run away from that since I was a kid.''

Then she had a stroke of good fortune. She saw an ad for vocational training. The Housing Authority was doing a pilot program to train low-income people for vocational school. ``I just took a chance and I went for it.''

In February 2005, she graduated from Concorde Career Colleges, Inc., and started working at the Northeast Valley Health Corporation two months later. ``It was my first job ever. I'm still in shock because it's coming on two years, and that's the longest I've ever worked in my life.''

The Plymouth is long gone now and she's renting a house in Sun Valley. She's going to Valley College to become a registered nurse.

``I think what is special about Patricia's story is that she hung on with iron-willed, pit-bull determination and kept moving forward,'' said her supervisor, Kathy Proctor. ``Some people in a similar situation find that their spirits get crushed. They get so overwhelmed and discouraged that they get paralyzed. She refused to stay down.''

Bothuel's story is one of hope.

``I never thought that I was capable of finishing anything,'' she said. ``And now I know I can.''

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(color) Patricia Bothuel spent time living out of a van, with children in tow, before becoming a licensed vocational nurse at the Northeast Valley Health Corp. in North Hollywood.