Stories of Homelessness in San Francisco

by Vix Jensen

People are bad at talking about the Big Things. The things that scare them, that they’d rather avoid, the things for which Occam’s Razor isn’t true. When we feel powerless to solve or improve something, it suddenly, irrevocably becomes someone else’s problem. A problem shared, but certainly not halved — just pushed away, ignored and left to grow on its own somewhere where we can’t see it.
What if that Big Thing — the thing that most people thought wasn’t theirs to be faced with — grew by almost 14% in a year? (HUD, 2017) What if it affected 134,000 people in one of the richest states in the union? (HUD, 2017) Those numbers reflect the magnitude of the homelessness crisis in California, a crisis which many Americans still shy away from acknowledging.

Our work at ShelterTech aims to help the transitionally homeless — or, those who find themselves in a transitional period of their lives, without stable housing. When we meet them, they are part way through their stories, which are always ones of rich experience. Struggle. Laughter. Loneliness. Community. Hard work. Whilst ShelterTech’s mission focuses on facilitating connection for the transitionally homeless community of San Francisco by providing them with resources accessible by internet, it must also play a role in allowing them to tell those stories. The ones that make them up, that pave their way and that are their own.

When we accept that storytelling is radical and transformative, we also understand that it is the only way to start talking about the Big Things. Through the smaller, personal, human stories that people in a community can tell, the world will start taking its hands down from its face — talking, listening and building.

This upcoming series of blog posts will center the voices of those directly affected by transitional homelessness, by telling their stories the way they want them told.

We spoke to Aaron for an interview in the following post. He experienced transitional homelessness in San Francisco following a bereavement and a divorce. He said: “Homelessness is a human condition, so you should deal with it.”

We hope you’ll join us for this series, as we hear from this community and all “deal with it” together.

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Twitter — twitter.com/ShelterTechOrg

Thank you so much, we appreciate you.