Anaheim, USA - Diana Gonzalez lives in an encampment of grimy tents and overstuffed shopping carts in an alley less than three miles from Disneyland. Her life is a world apart from the fairy tales of the Happiest Place on Earth.
For Gonzalez, mundane details such as the hours of the public restrooms at the community park down the street are obsessions necessary for survival.
"You've gotta smell sometimes because it's so cold," Gonzalez said, shivering in the chilly night air. "Where are you gonna shower if the bathrooms are closed? Where are you going to go to the bathroom?
" A recently formed interfaith group called the Poverty Task Force hopes to answer those questions as it fights homelessness in Anaheim, a city that is quietly wrestling with a street population rarely seen by the millions of tourists who flock to Disney's resort.
Anaheim's diverse churches and mosques have long worked together informally to fill the gaps with emergency shelter and food, but each realized they were only providing temporary fixes.
"We're not even scratching the surface of the city and I really think it needs to be faith-based. It's what we're about," said Deacon Doug Cook, a member of the coalition from San Antonio de Padua Church.
The city's humming tourism industry creates an abundance of low-wage jobs that keep many residents just a medical bill or car repair away from eviction in one of the most expensive rental markets in the nation, said Bob Murphy, general manager for American Family Housing, a nonprofit that runs several homeless programs.
Seventy percent of Orange County's homeless are women and children, a fact reflected in last year's HBO documentary series "Homeless: The Motel Kids of Orange County." Total homelessness has jumped 600 percent since 1989, with between 21,000 and 35,000 people on the streets, according to statistics compiled by the interfaith group.
The average rent for a two-bedroom apartment in Orange County is $1,350 a month, which requires an income of $25 an hour — and most people make half that, Murphy said.