Once homeless, he used to ride a bus all night for shelter. Now he’s a voice for those who still have none

For William “Will” Odell and the thousands of people he represents, a seat at the table is more than a symbolic gesture.

It’s a chance to have a voice in making decisions that could change peoples’ lives.

At least that’s the hope for the 54-year-old former high school teacher’s new role on the board of directors of American Family Housing — the same nonprofit that got him into a shared apartment about two years ago after he spent the better part of a decade homeless.

So far, he has attended two meetings in a conference room at the 12th-floor Irvine offices of Pacific Premier Bank.

He sits quietly among other directors from completely different walks of life — members of the corporate world, business owners, clergy, social workers.

He is the first board member who has experienced homelessness.

For now, Odell wants to absorb as much as he can about the initiatives being undertaken by the 33-year-old organization that started as a modest Orange County operation once known as Shelter for the Homeless. American Family Housing has expanded to provide affordable housing and other services to homeless and low-income residents in Los Angeles, Orange and San Bernardino counties.

“I’m just meeting everybody,” Odell said. “I’m just getting into knowing what they are doing.”

But as a tenant in one of the organization’s more than 280 units of affordable housing, Odell is uniquely positioned to inform the board from the twin perspectives of someone who was once in need of a place to stay, and someone now living in one of their properties.

“I’m the one there to say, hey, this affects us in ways you may not know about.”

That’s exactly what American Family Housing’s chief executive director, Milo Peinemann, is looking for from Odell — a direct opinion on the condition of the organization’s housing and how staff are treating tenants.

“He really gets it,” Peinemann said of Odell. “That’s experiential awareness.”

No place to rest

Odell, who holds college degrees in chemistry and biology, heard about American Family Housing through a homeless friend he met at a church where he took meals, in January 2016. There was an opening for temporary shelter at the Jackson Street facility in unincorporated Midway City, and Odell made his way over.

“By luck, I got in there,” Odell said of the bed he got soon after. “I was tired, scruffy and desperate.”

Before that, Odell says, he was “constantly traveling.” But his circuit was mainly up and down Westminster Boulevard.

“One thing you don’t want to do is end up sleeping on the sidewalk,” Odell said, explaining that to him that would mean “utter failure.”

Born and raised in Long Beach, Odell graduated from Chapman University in 1989. He had wanted to go to medical school, but his grades weren’t good enough, he said.

He’s worked various jobs that have included airport shuttle driver, computer technician, and teaching at schools in Long Beach and Los Angeles.

While he dealt with attention deficit disorder and severe asthma growing up, Odell wasn’t diagnosed as bipolar until he was in his late 30s.

By then, he was teaching full-time at the newly opened and troubled Santee Education Complex in south Los Angeles, where violence, crime and teacher turnover plagued the campus in its early years. In 2006, Odell married a woman he met through an online dating website.

His world imploded in 2008.

He went on stress leave from his teaching job. That same year, his wife, a collections agent who suffered from depression and anxiety attacks, hung herself while visiting her family in Utah.

Odell ran through his savings three years later and tumbled into homelessness.

He spent seven years without a place to rest his head, other than the bus he rode all night — disembarking at route’s end to wait an hour before boarding again — just to avoid sleeping on the streets. Sometimes during the day he’d bed down on the sand at Huntington Beach.

He managed to keep a $29-a-month gym membership at 24-hour Fitness, where he would shower and also spend part of the night swimming. At one point, Odell qualified for general relief and food stamps. But he never had enough to keep a roof over his head.

He said he was unaware of mental health programs that might have provided other support. He had applied several times for disability, but it wasn’t until he turned 50 and sought the help of a lawyer that he was approved. Before that, his only income came from general relief, which he qualified for along with food stamps because of his mental health.

Odell looks at his years on the street in unforgiving terms: “Utter failure.”

Good timing got him into his American Family Housing apartment, he said. Odell didn’t expect much when he put his name on a waiting list. A few days later, he got a surprising call.

“The lady was like, ‘I told you we’d have something.’ And I was like, I’ve heard this before.”

Ready to advocate

Odell now pays about half of his monthly disability income of $973 toward his rent. He and his roommates each have their own bedrooms in a remodeled three-unit apartment complex off Westminster Boulevard.

Through American Family Housing, he’s also connected to the county’s mental health program, which helps keep him stable.

A few months ago, a social worker with the nonprofit approached him about joining the board of directors. He was ready.

“I thought, here’s a chance to give something back,” Odell said.

From the time he has spent so far around the board of directors at American Family Housing, Odell says he sees a little bit of a disconnect between what he experienced and what the board sees as solutions.  In his mind, it can’t be one size fits all.

Something else Odell learned from his days being homeless: “I noticed if you’ve got an advocate, things get done.

“You hear about the lucky ones like me, but I needed help all the way.”