Training Wheels

Wearing flip-flops and shorts, low-income families who live at the Evergreen Royale Motel slipped out of their cramped rooms on a recent weekday and hopped on a state-of-the-art trailer.

They aren’t leaving town. They are poised to learn basic computer skills.

Just in front of Room 715, behind the dull beige stucco buildings and beyond the unkempt lawn of the Anaheim motel, the Orange County Rescue Mission’s computer-equipped trailer hums. Mission officials believe it is the only mobile computer classroom serving motel residents in the United States.

The $54,000 trailer, towed by a Ford pickup and stocked with $20,000 in computer equipment, has been brought to meet students who might not seek vocational training otherwise. This year, it began stopping for three-hour sessions twice monthly at eight motels and two churches in Orange County. It serves about 130 people per month.

Residents at the motels, in Anaheim, Costa Mesa, Cypress, Santa Ana and Stanton, often lack transportation, time and will to access vocational training. The mission hopes to tackle those barriers with this traveling classroom, dubbed the Technology Education Vehicle.

“We wanted people to boost their career skills. But it may also be the first self-esteem boost they have received in years,” said Jim Palmer, rescue mission president.

Palmer thought up the mobile training center after learning that Anaheim’s city code would not allow a computer classroom to be set up in a motel room.

George Mulak, who drives the pickup, fixes the computers and teaches the students, said computer skills can be survival skills in Orange County, where the average rent is about $1,100.

“A $6.50-an-hour job doesn’t pay the rent, not even with two people making that,” he said. “Employers who pay more want computer skills.”

Laura Braunlich, 40, takes every opportunity to meet the vehicle at its stops to learn Microsoft Office and other programs.

“I was desperate and hopeless for three years,” said Braunlich, who is unemployed and has lived in a Fountain Valley motel since she was evicted from her apartment three years ago. “This has made me hopeful. It’s a big change. Now I figure if I brush up on my computer skills, I’m just as good a [job] candidate as anyone else.”

From the technology vehicle, Braunlich was referred to a mission social worker who is helping her resolve credit problems and find job opportunities.

Braunlich is already a veteran student, but the new ones tell Mulak apologetically that they know nothing about computers.

Mulak tries to make his first lesson on computer terminology easy and helps each student sign on.

The students look bug-eyed at the seven machines set up inside the 32-foot-long, 10-foot-wide, air-conditioned trailer equipped with a bathroom. They promise to come back when the trailer visits the Evergreen Royale again in two weeks.

Michael Stoops, field organizer for the National Coalition for the Homeless, said he hopes other communities copy the mission’s model.

“This is a first of its kind. It’s a wonderful idea,” Stoops said. “Some group may have done something similar but I have not heard of it. I hope other communities pick this up.”

Barbara Duffield, education director for the coalition, said she knows of two other mobile computer programs for disadvantaged people but they serve children and do not have Internet access like the mission’s program does.

Although the mission does not allow visitors to surf the Internet, it does use the access to allow them to take a test that would make them a Microsoft Office User Specialist, a certification showing expertise in Microsoft products. Microsoft has told the mission that it knows of no other mobile certification outlet, Mulak said.

So far, only two people have gotten the certification, but Palmer hopes more follow.

Winston Palmer, 51, who is no relation to Jim, hopes such a document could help him get a job. The motel resident was recently evicted from his Costa Mesa apartment and lost his job.

“I don’t mind starting at the ground level,” he said. “I think it’s just starting that’s important.”