SAN FRANCISCO — They know chronic back pain from couch surfing during pregnancy. They put their children to sleep in the back of cars and under bridges. After the children sleep, only then do they let themselves cry.
Since January, a group of eight San Francisco mothers have met regularly as part of a local nonprofit pilot program to share their stories and learn how to advocate for the needs of families like theirs. experiencing homelessness.
“I feel like I failed my children,” says Teniah Tercero, crying as she talks about how she hates exposing her three daughters to open drug use in the city. gritty Tenderloin neighborhood where they sleep in a shelter.
The room is silent. Christiana Porter, also a mother, gently pats Tercero on the shoulder while someone else passes around a box of tissues.
“I know the feeling,” adds Danica Gutierrez, also a mother of three girls.
Gutierrez, 29, was skeptical about recounting some of the most difficult moments of her life to strangers.
“After being in the group, I started to realize that all of these ladies have a strong voice,” she said, “and maybe our voices together could be strong enough to make a difference in someone else’s life.”
The women are part of the Family Advisory Committee, a program launched this year by Compass Family Services, a San Francisco nonprofit, to empower homeless people to better meet their needs.
They learned how the city’s budgeting process works and met with politicians, sharing personal experiences and insights into what the city’s Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing and nonprofits should offer.
Overall, the women describe a homelessness services system that is confusing and even hostile, with websites that lack clear information and staff who can feel dismissive.
They want housing for families away from people struggling with drug addiction or behavior problems, and staff trained to accommodate homeless families. More money, they say, should be spent on housing rather than short-term shelters.
They also want families to receive clear instructions on which phone numbers to call and when to hold their place in the housing line. They want social workers to return their calls, even if there is no new information to report. They suggest nonprofits stock practical goods like raincoats for strollers and children’s clothing for special occasions like graduations.
In telling their stories to help others, the women found a welcome sisterhood.
Some members of the group suffered domestic violence. A mother recently arrived in San Francisco from Nicaragua and, with her husband, watched her 9-year-old daughter when the family slept outdoors, under blankets and on cardboard. A third-generation Franciscan woman sleeps on a folding couch in her parents’ living room.
Your search is for a safe and stable home in a city where the average monthly income is $3,300 and the average home price is $1.4 million.
Three years ago, Gutierrez and her daughters slept on mats in the gymnasium of a school that also served as a shelter. Now, she’s in a subsidized three-bedroom apartment with a rooftop garden, in a building with on-site daycare and case management.
The youngest girls, ages 7 and 8, share a cheerful room filled with library books and art supplies, while their 11-year-old sister has her own room. In the tiny kitchen, Gutierrez wrote “good morning, little children” on a chalkboard. A wall in her room is filled with certificates of her girls’ school performance.
But her “permanent supportive housing” neighbors include people struggling with addiction and mental illness, and she doesn’t feel her family is safe.
“I just hope this touches politicians’ hearts a little,” she says.
For years, tent camps made up mostly of childless adults who often used illegal drugs and blocked sidewalks, dominated the national debate about people living on the streets. The issue reached the US Supreme Court, which ruled on Friday that cities can impose bans on homelessness sleeping outdoors in public places.
But family homelessness is rising, driven by migration and an uneven post-pandemic recovery, as COVID-era benefits and government protections against evictions expire.
A federal count found more than 50,000 households with at least one adult and one child experiencing homelessness in 2023. The number of 186,000 adults with children in those households represents a 16% increase from the previous year, according to a count of one night from the US Department of Justice. Housing and Urban Development. Most of the growth has been attributed to New York, where migrants are filling from New York City shelters.
In California, the count found more than 25,500 homeless adults with children, including about 600 in San Francisco. The city has 400 places for families that accommodate around 750 people, many of them in private rooms.
As of mid-June, there were more than 500 families on San Francisco’s waiting lists for emergency shelter and hotel vouchers.
“Babies can’t wait,” says Porter, 34, an eyebrow esthetician with amazing braids.
She fell behind on her rent during the pandemic, working multiple low-paying jobs, with five children and limited help with child care.
Jennifer Johnson, 38, grew up homeless and thought she was done with that life. She then lost her job as a real estate manager at the start of the pandemic and her apartment when her landlord decided to sell it.
Johnson, an aspiring chef, stayed with family and friends when she became pregnant with her first child. When Johnson, who now has two boys, 1 and 3, finally asked for help, she was told her situation wasn’t serious enough for housing.
“The powers that be need to see how this works,” she said, “and how it affects people.”
Shelter staff turnover is high due to burnout and low wages, and there are not enough beds or rooms to house everyone in need, much less to ensure that homeless families are kept separate from other adults with substance abuse or other problems.
In late May, the women showed up at City Hall for 30-minute meetings with members of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Despite an angry conversation with a supervisor that ended in tears, they declared it a success.
San Francisco Mayor London Breed has pledged $50 million for more shelters and emergency housing for families, “an unprecedented level of resources,” said Hope Kamer of Compass, which is working with the city to implement some women’s suggestions.
Albert Townsend of the National Alliance to End Homelessness works to ensure that people who share their stories are prepared for leadership roles where they can have the most impact.
“You have more hearts, hands and minds at the table,” he said.
Bleary-eyed from working a night shift working in a public restroom, Tercero pushed a tire swing on a recent afternoon as her daughters Amairany, 8, Rojelia, 7, and Valentina, 4, laughed.
They lived in many places, from motel rooms to the red Dodge Durango that also served as their home – cozy with Mickey Mouse curtains on the back windows and red nail polish painted dashboard trim.
The city can help families by investing in places that feel like home, rather than shelters that can be dangerous and burdensome, with rules and reprimands about mealtime sign-ups and curfews, Tercero said. A place, she said, where “you can feel like a person, a mother, instead of a prisoner.”
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