Women, too, getting help at Stand Down

Women, too, getting help at Stand Down


By Robert Jordan
Valley Times
Article Last Updated: 08/08/2008 10:59:53 PM PDT

PLEASANTON — Renee Lyles-Creech's work is impossible to see. But the 51-year-old El Sobrante woman's marks are scattered throughout the Bay Area, buried under concrete, blocked by glass windows and covered up with paint.

A welder, Lyles-Creech's eyes light up when she talks about the trade she learned in the Navy and continued to use when she got out up until she suffered a shoulder injury in 2000.

That injury resulted in her losing full-time work; a series of traffic tickets hampered her from finding steady employment or a place to live.

She served in the service from 1974 to 1978 and patched up Sea King helicopters. After her service ended, she helped retrofit San Francisco City Hall and worked on the Bay Bridge.

Lyles-Creech is one of a growing number of woman participants at the East Bay Stand Down, hoping to find the assistance to get back on their feet.

"I just haven't been able to keep up with rent," said Lyles-Creech, who is staying with a friend in El Sobrante. "I'm in parking ticket hell. I just have surmounted so many."

This year's Stand Down drew 32 women veterans, the most since it started in 1999. According to the Department of Veterans Affairs, about 1.7 million women are among this nation's 23.5 million veterans.
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