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Love on the River Bottom

21 images Created 29 Nov 2017

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  • Cleanliness and hygiene are important to Jessejo Magallon bathing regularly with tap water, keeping his hair trim.  Managers of a nearby storage facility, let Magallon take potable water from their outdoor faucet. Veronica Sandez says that when they go “up top” into the city of Santa Paula people who don’t know them have no idea that they are homeless. <br />
06-23-10 Santa Paula
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  • First Presbyterian Church of Santa Paula has employed Jessejo Magallon painting part time; the skill that once made him a living. Veronica Sandez, Magallon’s former methamphetamine dealer, has re-entered his life as his clean and sober lover. While Magallon eases her into homeless living, she eases him toward civilization. The two struggle together in what would be the last year in Magallon’s homeless domain along the Santa Clara River. <br />
07-08-10
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  • While Jessejo Magallon warms up on the drums, Veronica Sandez calls his attention to a possibly functional garden light yielded from one of his visits to the Santa Paula dump. Magallon makes clandestine, after dark trips there, salvaging necessities for the camp’s survival.<br />
05-26-10 Santa Paula
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  • Jessejo Magallon gives Veronica Sandez a kiss at breakfast time under the umbrella of the kitchen area.  The encampment where five core adults live includes Carlos Urbano, his 60-year-old mother Elizabeth Urbano, Daniel Velasquez, Sandez and Magallon.  Magallon claimed the area on the banks of the Santa Clara River as his years ago.  Others have come and gone with Magallon calling the shots, but the five remain constant surviving off the grid of the city of Santa Paula. <br />
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  • Three consecutive days and several inches of winter rain has swollen the Santa Clara River considerably. During a reprieve at dusk Jessejo Magallon surveys the water line that has receded some but is still perilously close to his community. Magallon carries his thermos and wears two right-footed boots. Several more days of rain are expected. Flash-flood alerts have been broadcast but without television, the five river dwellers know only from experience what the possibilities are along the river in Santa Paula. <br />
12-19-10 Santa Paula
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  • Jessejo Magallon rose from his tent in humorous spirits but the conversation has turned serious bringing Veronica Sandez to tears. As the summer heat ratchets up, Sandez struggles to understand why the local task force for the homeless has done nothing to help them. Magallon fuels her upset telling her the board is self-serving and not to be trusted. Magallon suggests she do as he does, keep her focus on daily survival and don’t get drawn into promises from people “up top” in the city. <br />
06-24-10 Santa Paula
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  • Veronica Sandez says she doesn’t want to get comfortable at their encampment, what she calls “the ranch", she wants a job, a roof over her head, and aspires to be a chaplain. Sandez volunteers to get closer to her goals including housekeeping at First Presbyterian Church of Santa Paula. Part of what drives Veronica Sandez “up top” to her volunteer jobs is having normal conversations with people who are not on methamphetamine.<br />
07-08-10 Santa Paula
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  • Jessejo Magallon skillfully plays piano during a break from painting while Sandez cleans at First Presbyterian Church of Santa Paula. Sandez is encouraged that Magallon is getting “up top” into the city more and getting work, hopeful that it puts them one step closer to their transition from the river encampment to an apartment. <br />
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  • At the end of a weekday Mass, Pastor Ron Dybvig of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Santa Paula is pleased that Veronica Sandez is considering a request for her to speak to teens on her experiences as a young teen mother.  While the church and sobriety draw Sandez away from her homeless life, her love for Jessejo Magallon proves a polarizing force. <br />
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  • Daniel Velasquez returns from a day trip to the recycling center. Jessejo Magallon returns from a part time painting job at First Presbyterian Church of Santa Paula to a kiss from Veronica Sandez. Velasquez made $11.00 and brings back perishables that will quickly go into a dark covered drum, secure from rats.  Sandez is proud of Magallon getting work, hopeful that this is one step closer to their move from the river encampment to an apartment. <br />
07-08-10 Santa Paula
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  • As evening sets in, Jessejo Magallon starts talking about strange lights on a mountaintop across the river that he has often seen over the years from his homeless encampment.  “Everyone thinks I’m crazy”, Magallon says of his observations. Months later a man going only by the name of “Kim” and Santa Paula Police officers had stopped to watch the mysterious light activity. Kim caught it on videotape and shared it with Magallon, Sandez and some of those who formerly questioned Magallon’s sanity and sobriety over the lights.<br />
05-13-11
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  • Veronica Sandez gets her height, weight and blood tested by Deanne Morales, health educator assistant with the Ventura County Dept. of Health’s sidewalk diabetes testing center in Santa Paula. Morales says she too was homeless living in her car with her child. Sandez is diabetic but doesn’t eat fresh foods very often living homeless on the Santa Clara River bottom.  <br />
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  • Jessejo Magallon picks through the remains of his tent set ablaze the eve of Valentine’s Day. Committed to marry Veronica Sandez soon, all the material ties Magallon had to the encampment are now gone. The fire prompted a verbal eviction notice from property owners, effective within 24 hours. <br />
02-14-11 Santa Paula
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  • Among Magallon’s most treasured possessions were someone’s old diary, misprinted sports cards and his drums, all destroyed when his tent caught fire in his absence. According to a co-manager of land they live on, Magallon’s community has had a few fires over the years.<br />
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  • Depressed, cold, and rained on Jessejo Magallon wakes up to Veronica Sandez visiting the burned encampment shortly past dawn on Valentine’s Day. Magallon is certain his tent was set ablaze by outsiders. Sandez believes that whoever burned his home to the ground; it was God’s will. Sandez has transitioned to a sober-living home for the homeless and has held down a part-time job for a few months now, checking on Magallon daily. This is the last day the couple would spend together there.  All five residents dispersed to parts unknown and property was bulldozed within days. <br />
02-14-11 Santa Paula
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  • Jessejo Magallon and Veronica Sandez walk toward the top of the driveway by their riverside encampment.  While Magallon says he is happy living homeless away from everyone’s rules, bills and taxes, Sandez wants better for them. <br />
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  • Jessejo Magallon’s possessions surround his river dwelling where he is able to freely express his love of music without volume complaints from neighbors.  To Magallon, each item collected had functional, marketable or sentimental value. Some pieces were stand-by parts or fascinatde him as pieces of Santa Paula's past. <br />
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  • After dinner Jessejo Magallon sweeps up while his partner Veronica Sandez puts dinner items out of reach of the incoming nocturnal rat population. Clothes are folded or hung on lines hung between tent supports and the bamboo that allows the small community privacy. Everyone settles in, Carlos Urbano focusing on his rusted metals that he believes are gold, his mother Elizabeth Urbano cautious not to eat too soon before bed with concern of the rats picking her teeth in her sleep and Daniel Velasquez secluding himself to his tent with his self-described “black heart” destroyed by a love. Magallon leaves a Spanish radio station playing within mild earshot of all. <br />
05-26-11
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  • Veronica Sandez stands a distance from the home at right that she used to live in with her abusive ex-boyfriend and their children in Santa Paula. A former dealer and user of methamphetamine, Sandez is clean & sober and living in the homeless riverbed community of Jessejo Magallon, with whom she is in love.<br />
04-08-10 Santa Paula
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  • At twilight Jessejo Magallon inspects the side gate of Santa Paula Self Storage. The reach of Magallon’s territorial protection includes the facility. Both the company and the city have condoned the encampment hidden from sight a few dozen yards behind the business. Former Santa Paula Mayor Kay Wilson-Bolton says that Magallon, though seldom seen, is a respected figure in the city’s homeless population.  An unwritten rule among them is that no one messes with Magallon’s territory. <br />
05-26-11
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  • Jessejo Magallon comes to the immediate aid of Veronica Sandez when a coyote crosses her path on her way back from work on Wednesday morning. Both were alarmed that a coyote was out in the daytime and though Magallon could not find it in the brush, he set out to kill it with a bow and two arrows.<br />
06-23-10 Santa Paula
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