Mary and Cesar Cervantes have a new apartment in Gilroy with their children, from left, Meghan, Jonathan and Aundreah. When Jonathan became ill last year, the family was homeless until St. Joseph's Family Center stepped in.

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Getting back on track
TEMPORARY HOME IS LIFESAVER FOR ILL KIDS' FAMILY

sometimes late at night, Cesar and Mary Cervantes would find little Jonathan lying on the cool bathroom floor, too weak to call out, too weak to get up. Sometimes he'd stop breathing and turn blue.

``Mommy, remember I was so pale?'' says Jonathan, 6, who was in and out of the hospital for a year before he was finally diagnosed last winter with the severe allergies and asthma that almost killed him. He's better now, not so thin. And he's only missed one day of first grade this year.

Mary quit her job at a Gilroy day-care center last year to care full time for Jonathan and his sisters Meghan, 9, who also has asthma, and Aundreah, 3.

But Cesar's job didn't bring in enough to support the family without Mary's income and the Cervantes were homeless by Christmas. St. Joseph's Family Center stepped in with a three-month reprieve at the Arturo Ochoa Migrant Housing Center in Gilroy, which offers small, furnished duplexes to homeless families each season. Last year, the center helped 55 families get back on track, find jobs, get rent money together and move on.

Cesar has a better paying job working for a cable company and Mary is training on Saturdays to become a computer technician. The kids' health is stabilized. Still, they're barely getting by, and their Gilroy apartment would be cozier with the most basic of furnishings -- beds ($299 for Cesar and Mary, 23A; $158 each for the kids, including hypoallergenic mattress bags, 23B), bedding ($20 each bed, 23C) and blankets ($20 each, 23D). A vacuum cleaner with special filter and bags ($280, 23E) would help control the dust that aggravates the kids' allergies. And Aundreah needs a car seat ($65, 23F).

And each donation of $125 (23G) to St. Joseph's — a non-profit agency that manages programming at the housing center — would provide a homeless child with new clothes and school supplies, which the staff says boosts their self-confidence. The center expects to house about 120 children this winter.