Once without a place to call her own, Regina Lebel points the way for others in need.

As Regina Lebel opens the door to her apartment, she is the picture of Christmas in a bright red cardigan sweater lined with silver sparkles, a red and green plaid dress with a wintry forest scene decorating the hem, and faux-fur-topped boots. No outfit of Lebel’s would be complete without her signature jewelry. On this day she’s wearing a chunky necklace, multiple bracelets on each wrist and a ring on every finger.

Just inside the living room is a three-foot lighted Christmas tree covered with ornaments, including one of Wonder Woman, Lebel points out. This is her second Christmas in her Monterey home. It’s the city she has always considered home since her family settled there in 1977, following years of living in different parts of the country and the world while her dad was in the Air Force.

It was here that Lebel earned an associates degree in theater arts from Monterey Peninsula College. She transferred to San Francisco State University to earn her bachelor’s. She worked in banquet catering and hospitality and still works at upscale banquets during Car Week and other events through a staffing agency. After becoming fascinated with astrology, numerology and the metaphysical arts, she worked as a psychic reader privately and at events up and down California.

Lebel secured a housing voucher over 15 years ago and was living in a Seaside apartment complex for eight and a half years until a series of unfortunate events happened that included neighbors stealing from her and attacking her, she says. After police came out to her apartment one too many times for management’s liking, she was evicted. When she tried to find another apartment using her voucher, she ran into the barriers so many other people who’ve fallen on hard times do: “Lapses in rental history, brushes with the law, poor credit score” and not making at least three times over the monthly rent, she says.

The voucher expired.

“I found myself living in Veterans Park [in Monterey] in tents and then I found through Gathering for Women a lot of support and assistance,” she says.

From there she entered the I-HELP program, an interfaith nonprofit that rotates between churches for overnight lodging. “I enjoyed that very much actually, staying in sacred spaces and having a meal with people who offered support in a difficult time,” she says.

The difficult part was having to leave the churches every morning. Lebel needed a place to fill out paperwork to try and regain another voucher. She’d set up a tent in a park, only to have law enforcement chase her away.

It was a challenge, always, to get herself dressed and ready for her work as a banquet server from inside a tent.

The Covid-19 pandemic paved the way for better times for Lebel. She was enrolled in Project Roomkey, a state program that provided temporary housing in motels. From there she landed an apartment in the first Homekey project in Salinas, another state program that promotes the purchase and renovation of hotels into apartments for permanent housing. After eight months in Homekey, she got a call from the Housing Authority of the County of Monterey in September 2021, asking if she wanted the apartment in Monterey.

She was thrilled to be heading home.

“I’ve successfully been here for over a year now. I’m able to enjoy my apartment in comfort and serenity while assisting others advocating for community resources toward gaining what I have – or better,” she says.

Lebel now volunteers a few days a week with different programs that feed people. She gives advice to newcomers on where to go to get help. She mentors them on how to navigate a complex maze of nonprofit, local, state and federal homeless and housing programs.

“You have to be willing to jump through the hoops,” she says. “You have to be savvy and know how to navigate everything from law enforcement to housing managers. You have to be capable, strong and grateful for any opportunities given.”