Renee Banton - veteran, hero, Angelino

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It's a gray morning and every seat in the living room of Mitchell House is taken. The residents - all women veterans - are attending a session on dealing with resentment.

Renee Banton is their leader.

"There's always going to be a problem because people are trying to work on issues, get this thing called recovery. Live it, practice it... Ie Fall off the bike and get back up," said Renee.

It's her mission to help them get sober and get their lives on track. Many of the women are coming right from the streets.

Not long ago, Renee found her way to Mitchell House, run by the nonprofit New Directions. It's in the Los Angeles neighborhood Mar Vista; an American flag waves from the porch and the lawn is mowed regularly.

She'd been living on the streets of Skid Row for ten years, doing just about anything to get high, even turning tricks

"I felt desperate, just absolutely felt like and this can't keep happening."

Renee decided to do something that would surprise everyone, including her. She borrowed a friend's phone and called her mom.

"I want to give a Mother's Day gift. My best thinking was to call my mom and tell her 'oh I'm going to go into a treatment facility on Monday' which was following Mother's Day. Moment I said it - wondered to myself 'why did you say something like that? What have I done?!' Probably, knowing me, up until that second before the phone call - I probably smoked up the last ten or fifteen dollars I had. And perhaps God made me say these words - because they aren't anything I'd ever uttered before, never ever. Yeah, I think God helped me a lot that day."

The day after Mother's Day, Renee decided to keep her promise, to give recovery a try. She took a bus from Skid Row to Mitchell House. She walked through the door and was given a guarantee of clothes, food, and a bunk - it was almost like being back in the military. Except now she had to get sober.

Renee remembers the first night, lying in her bunk, surrounded by her new roommates. It sure beat sleeping on a cardboard box.

"A sense of peace seemed to be here. The smell of fabric softener or washing powder. That was so much different. Because the smell in the drug game has a certain odor. Odor of urine. There's death odor. So to come into an atmosphere that not only gave the appearance of clean, but you smelled clean..."

Renee served for four years at Pease Air Force base in New Hampshire. After she was discharged, her introduction to crack began innocently. Some of her softball teammates invited her to try some after a game. Renee then suffered from an addiction so fierce she lost her house, her husband and custody of her two boys.

Eleven percent of homeless veterans are women - but it's a population that's growing. And the odds of full recovery from substance addiction many of them face aren't good.

"I know what it is to be homeless and to be on drugs and to go through that whole routine, to see someone go back out there, it hurts, but the reality of this field and this disease is only 25% of people that come in here stay sober. So your odds are against you from jump straight, I'm not supposed to be sober. Why am I sober? I consider it a miracle."

Renee encountered what she believed was another miracle when she was asked to lead the women's program at Mitchell House.

"One more time - they're taking a chance with me - they took a chance with me being a receptionist; they took a chance with me putting me in the accounting department with all their money. And now they're putting me over here, taking a chance that I could help people with their lives. I came from this house, I graduated from this house, I'm a veteran. I think all of that gives the clients - hope."

Mitchell House provides daily treatment and a home for eight women veterans for as long as they chose to stay - which can be up to two years. When residents finish the twelve step process and are ready to move out, counselors like Renee look for the VA housing vouchers, and work opportunities and try to reconnect them with their families.

Renee leads group therapy in the living room. Some women sit with their hands in their heads, some lean forward and interrupt frequently; a tissue box always sits on the coffee table.

Renee: "Do I know who I am? No, I know who I'm not. I'm no longer homeless downtown. Right? I'm no longer using. Yeah, I'm no longer turning tricks. I'm no longer staying up all night. Who am I? Well, I'm a mother, I'm a counselor to you guys. I can be a friend. I can be a daughter. I can be a sister now. I'm responsible. I'm respectable. I'm a role model now. But do I know I am? Not till the end. I need to stay in conscious contact with my higher power..."

Woman: "I just don't want to end up in the pit of the pit anymore."

Renee: "Then you gonna have to change."
After long, tough sessions with residents, Renee still has to deal with the administrative demands of running Mitchell House - moving graduates into veteran housing and filling empty beds with new vets.

Renee: "I really appreciate your help this week. Alright bye bye."

Renee has to be careful that she makes time to take care of herself too, to see her sponsor and to look after her own recovery.

Renee: "So we're looking at the twenty second..."

Renee started her recovery with the hopes of giving a good Mother's Day gift to her mom, but now she knows the gift was to herself. Renee wears a gold charm necklace around her neck with the number 7, to mark the years that have passed since that first Mother's Day.

"I wear my number with much pride. Because there's a lot of pain in this, a lot of feeling in this, a lot of hard work to get this number. So I appreciate it. It's like my gift every year to myself."

Each week, Renee tries to carve out time for herself, but she's got open beds in the house and it's her mission to fill them with women just like her.

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