Taking Relief Matters Into Their Own Hands

“Thomas, Tracy and Jeremy saved my life,” exclaimed Latosha Ross to the crowd gathered at NoHo Modern Furniture in North Hollywood, last Friday night. The more than 100 guests milling around the store, opened three years ago by Thomas Hayes and Jeremy Petty, were there to attend a benefit for Ross and her daughter, Keairria Shorter, who were adopted by NoHo Modern’s owners in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

Like many, Hayes and his wife Tracy, along with Petty, had been sickened by the televised scenes of human devastation wrought by the nation’s largest natural disaster in a century. They wanted to do something to help. “We didn’t feel that good about just giving money to an anonymous entity,” said Petty. “People like to feel like they’re doing something directly.”

“My friend Jill, was traveling to Alabama to do hurricane relief work,” Hayes related. “I asked her to look out for a family we could help. I wanted to send a check to someone specifically.” Jill found Ross and her daughter. Residents of Gulf Port, MI, the two had been living on the roof of their apartment building, with a dozen other survivors, for six days. Subsisting on scant rations of Vienna sausages and storm water doused with bleach, they were sick, tired and losing hope by the time they were discovered.

“Jill called to tell me about this family and asked me if I’d like to take them in,” Hayes related. This was a much larger commitment than mailing a check. Yet, without hesitation, plane tickets were purchased, and a room in Hayes’ Valley Village home was hastily painted and furnished to accommodate the survivors.

Ross and Shorter arrived on September 6, to begin the process of building a new life in Los Angeles. With help from NoHo Modern’s supporters, abundant donations were collected to clothe the two, and Keairria, 8, was immediately enrolled in Colfax Avenue Elementary School. However, persistent bouts of gastrointestinal illness caused her to miss much of her first two weeks of third grade. After several trips to emergency clinics, a pediatrician was found who would treat Keairria gratis. This same doctor also convinced Huntington Medical Center in Pasadena to donate their services, where it was finally determined that the girl was suffering from salmonella poisoning. Due to this generosity, by the night of the reception, Keairria was on the mend and enjoying the festivities.

Though Ross and Shorter have been saved from their immediate devastation, there is much more to do to get their lives on track. Now that her daughter is out of danger, Ross, who had worked as a sous chef in a Gulf Port casino, has begun looking for a job. Then there is also the matter of finding a permanent home. The $5,000 collected at the fundraiser, and another $5000 in cash and gift cards donated previously, will help with this — as will the offers of play dates, jobs leads and other assistance that have come from NoHo Modern’s extended group of friends.

There is much they will need to learn outside of the realm of basic survival skills to make the transition from living in the South to living in California. The West Coast is a vastly different place than the one from which they came, and the culture shock that has begun to set in has been as surprising to Hayes and Petty as it has to Ross and Shorter.

As if seeing her first Whole Foods store wasn’t startling enough, by way of example, Hayes related that he had to “sit Latosha down and explain to her that she couldn’t just yell at her kid in public in California. I told her that it was okay to do that in the South, but here you would get reported and have your kid taken away from you.”

Petty added that they don’t want to just be the two white guys who keep telling her what to do with her child, her money or her life. “Right now she probably thinks of us as angels of mercy. But, there will come a point when she’s going to want to do what she wants to do.” He wants to make sure that when that time comes, she will have the tools to take care of herself. “I don’t want her to blow the money on cigarettes, alcohol and things like rental furniture,” he said. “I don’t want her paying all those poverty taxes. In fact, our accountant has offered to help her with her finances.”

It may be a long time before Ross becomes comfortable in this new environment, and Hayes and Petty plan to continue to help until that happens.

“I don’t intend to drop off. I intend to be involved in their lives for a long time,” said Petty. “They say you can give someone a fish, or you can teach them to fish and they’ll be able to take care of themselves. That’s what we are trying to do.”

Read more about the family on Petty’s blog: or contact them directly at NoHo Modern, 11225 Magnolia Blvd., North Hollywood, CA 91601; 818-505-1297.

Appeared in "Studio City Sun " September 18, 2005 © Suzanne Rush 2008