Help Arrives For 2 Homeless Sisters Sleeping On Bus Bench In Hollywood
LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — With the new year comes new hope.
Two sisters who were living on the streets, have met their Guardian Angel.
CBS2's Kristine Lazar met the two sisters and the woman who made it her mission to help them.
For the past 5 months, sisters Mary and Bridget Donovan lived on the streets of Hollywood. They slept behind a bus stop on Franklin and Western.
"At nighttime, I used to listen to music to keep awoke because for three hours while my sister fell asleep because I thought something was going to happen," says Mary.
The sisters say they were threatened, had trash thrown at them, and felt forgotten by society.
"I was losing hope," Mary says ,"I began to not even feel real. I walked and walked, and did the same thing every day, and then I began to feel nothing."
But just before she went completely numb hope arrived in the form of a young woman named Jaime Blauvelt.
"She was the nicest person I've ever met," said Mary.
Blauvelt lives with her husband, Chris, near the bus stop where the sisters were sleeping. One day, she stopped to talk to them.
"I just wanted to find out what their story was, I guess, and how they ended up there," Blauvelt says.
Blauvelt found out the sisters lost their apartment last year when they were both unemployed. Soon, she started bringing them food, clothing and blankets. And then when the weather turned, she and her husband decided to use their own money to put the sisters into a hotel for a week over the holidays.
"Part of the money, we were going to take a trip, but we got so involved with this, we wanted to help them," said Chris.
As the week came to an end, the couple decided to start a fundraising page to raise money to extend their stay. The response was overwhelming.
"We thought maybe we'd get them a couple of extra nights at the hotel. Our limit was $500. That is what we were hoping to get. And now it's almost $9,000 dollars."
The last thing anyone wants to see is for the money to run out and have the sisters return to the streets. So the couple have arranged for the sisters to talk to a social worker about more permanent housing.
But they've been warned, it could take weeks, maybe months to locate something affordable and permanent.
"I guess I just don't want them to go back out on the street," said Jamie, crying.
So the couple is hoping the fundraising page will continue to grow.
"I'm really grateful," Bridget said.
The Blauvelts said they are hoping Mary and Bridget never have to spend another night, afraid to go to sleep.
For more information about the sisters and the GoFundMe page set up for them, click here.
