Humanizing homelessness

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Headline goes right here Humanizing ISAbELLE NUNES homelessness: The stories of Miguel, Karina, and Manuel laut omnim res molor simolup tatende tem ius quo consentur remo quae aut llecaborro et, sunt mo et ventet reiuntis officiistia esed quid ea quassec uptatur illaccum aliquia eaquiae volorer ibearum aut omnienis accum quaerum resciis id haritatem ressus aut autate laceribusa quibus aut poressim rem audam archilit dolorpos ma porecab orestectum sed opta velentur? quo eossiti orerum aut recatum volupta di cus dolor aut laut eruntio riaepuda debitiumet odiorum vella denis essi- veritatem ius. tatquia del ipsus. Atur sunt quia volentus et la con Porpor ratur reperep tasimin cus nisum imolestem quam quatemporem magnimi nvenditi a is init arcillabor amRo toris dolupta tiumquatur, sus aut voluptat harcipsam et liquo illo- anti alitaspellis rectotassi inus magnis rae preperf erepudis sed esequid ulpa magnisquo qui blabo. Vitatur ionsedit, cupta voluptam ne excepel ma entis is eatur as voloribus ea ipsaper iamet, voluptiorem volutas et ut debisquia omnimi, et ped est, od maiore nimodit comnimodias exces delest audaestiam quidis necus. apis earibea imus del id ullis et ea quibus Ici ut aut et et asstio. oditiuribus. digenis qui cus moluptwa tiuntes re Voluptiae porio. Itatem ut endam, adis debit etur? Destrumquat expedis earcidu moditiis esto quatusa que ea entiassum cillabo ribusda musdandae. Ita sita volo

WRItING AND PHotoS by HUDSoN Fox

Sweltering heat beats down on your neck on a hot summer day, an anomaly for a city famed for its rolling blanket of fog. Meandering through the streets of San Francisco, you search for a shady bench. When you find one and sit down, you look to each side. There are spiked metal poles sticking out at threefoot intervals, making lying down impossible. Cops patrol the neighborhood, watching intently as you take a seat. To you, this is no big deal.

To the homeless population, it is everything.

Being unhoused has always been difficult in San Francisco. Take Miguel Carrera, a formerly homeless resident of San Francisco who has now become a housing justice organizer at the Coalition on Homelessness.

“When you become homeless, you lose your job, opportunity, and your family,” Carrera said.

According to Carrera, he suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder due to his time on the streets. Motivated by these traumas, he has dedicated himself over the past 27 years to “advocating for and defending” the rights of the homeless and working to ensure that adequate housing is provided in San Francisco.

Carrera has faced some of the same challenges shared by today’s homeless population.

“I know how difficult it is when you are homeless, looking for an area to rest, and then have the police come up to you and tell you that you have to move. They don’t offer a solution. Either you move, or they bring you to jail,” Carrera said.

Anti-homeless architecture, a recent tactic employed by the city of San Francisco, involves purposely building infrastructure meant to prevent homeless encampments from popping up in public areas. Combined with an increased presence of police, this creates a difficult environment for today’s homeless population.

In terms of city-led alternatives, some officials will argue that homeless shelters temporarily solve the issue by providing a roof over homeless people’s heads. However, a lot of homeless people choose the streets over the shelters.

Karina*, a homeless resident and mother of four who used to live in women’s shelters in San Francisco, reflected upon her poor experience in the shelter system.

“[Authority figures] in shelters yell at you, ‘Hurry up, what’s wrong with you?’ What’s wrong with me? I’m being yelled at. That’s what’s wrong,” Karina said.

Getting back on her feet was hard, as the constant belittling and condescending attitudes of some workers made it difficult for her to tolerate the situation.

“I was working, trying to go to school at an academy of arts, and it was fun, but they still looked at me like I wasn’t s**t,” Karina said.

Many others in shelters share that experience. According to a 2014 survey conducted by the Coalition on Homelessness, 55% of the 215 shelter resident respondents said the staff or other residents had verbally abused them during their stay at homeless shelters.

Carrera acknowledged that the system built to positively address the homelessness crisis sometimes has the opposite effect.

“The problem is not the homeless people; it is the system. [Policies and practices] create bad conditions that [work against] poor people,” Carrera said.

Given these issues, organizations have begun searching for solutions. For Carrera, affordable housing is the number one priority.

“You cannot provide a recovery program, an [Alcoholics Anonymous] program to homeless people, if we don’t provide the stability that homeless people need. This stability means housing,” Carrera said.

According to Carrera, 40,000 empty housing units in San Francisco remain abandoned. He proposed moving homeless people into empty housing units and hotel rooms as a temporary measure to address the issue while simultaneously developing plans to decrease housing prices and create permanently affordable housing. But to him, inaction reveals how little government officials care.

And San Francisco isn’t alone.

“Cities in the Bay Area aren’t trying to solve the problem, and that is an issue,” Carrera said.

Across the Bay Area, the homelessness crisis has exploded. Between 2017 and 2020, the Bay Area’s homeless population increased by 22%, making up roughly 30% of the growth in the national homeless population, according to a report by the Bay Area Council Economic Institute.

Composed of over 100 cities, the Bay Area covers nine counties. In San Mateo County, local communities are presented with similar problems to those who live in metropolitan areas such as San Francisco.

After her experience in the shelters, Karina migrated southward, set up a series of tents to house her family, and established a settlement in Redwood City, California. Manuel, another homeless resident of Redwood City, came by choice. He cited his father’s passing as the impetus for choosing to become homeless, breaking away from his family and leaving unannounced.

When he first arrived in Redwood City, he was taken aback by the diversity of people that he encountered on the street.

“Being here was a totally new experience. It’s very dangerous to be on the streets. There are so many people here that come from different backgrounds. There are professionals, some that use drugs like marijuana, heroin, and crystal meth,” Manuel said.

Manuel plans to soon leave the encampment. However, leaving may be hard for him.

“I don’t want to leave because [right now], I don’t have the pressure of paying rent, of neighbors complaining about the music being too loud, and things like that,” Manuel said.

However, a personal attack may have swayed his opinion. During our interview, Manuel recounted how, about a week before, someone hit him over the head with a two-by-four-foot block of wood. In explaining the attack, Manuel referenced the attacker’s history of drug usage.

“That guy shoots [heroin]. I don’t know why, but I guess that is why he went crazy,” Manuel said.

Physical attacks and crime are not the only issues for homeless residents of the Bay Area — access to clean water can present a greater problem than almost any other.

“Taking showers is one of the biggest challenges because water is scarce. Water is the key to everything,” Karina said.

Manuel agreed, noting that he also prizes showers and clean water.

A report from last year drove home the point that water is hard to come by for the homeless community. The UNHOUSED Water for All Initiative report by the Coalition on Homelessness San Francisco, published on March 16, 2021, reveals how in San Francisco, 61% of respondents didn’t have access to the lowest international minimum standard for water access.

For Carrera, access to showers provided him with new opportunities.

“[After being able to shower], I was clean and sober while looking for a job. Now, I [was able to] start making money,” Carrera said.

Noting that many homeless do not have the same access to basic amenities such as a shower and clean shelter, Carrera struck a somber final note.

“If we don’t have the opportunity, it’s difficult to create change,” Carrera said.

*In an effort to protect the identity of the homeless population and their whereabouts, the last names of these sources have been withheld in accordance with Carlmont Media’s Anonymous Sourcing Policy.