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SF State college students share their experiences with homelessness

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    [ Music ]
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    >> I never thought I'd be homeless.
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    I felt like it was us against the world.
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    Coming to San Francisco we
    had all these high hopes.
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    We were like campus is a great place.
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    It's beautiful.
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    We're so excited, you know.
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    We had all these hopes and then we came out
    here and it's just like damn, it's really hard.
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    Housing has been pretty difficult to come by.
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    I first moved out here and I found a
    place with a friend who lived off campus.
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    But then she got evicted so we both had to leave
    or pay like $1000 just to stay another night.
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    So we're just kind of like walking
    the street, one of our friends offered
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    to let us keep our stuff at her house while we
    like moved around, back and forward to school
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    and we were able to spend some
    nights with her but not all the time.
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    Sometimes we wouldn't have anywhere to go so
    we would just kind of wander around school,
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    wait until our friend would be
    like hey, you can come over.
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    It was really difficult.
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    >> Ever since I graduated high school at
    the age of 18 I was actually homeless.
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    What's kind of led to me to this point was
    stress, I think, the amount of stress of working
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    and going to school at the same
    time was taking its toll on me.
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    So by this year I started
    living in the homeless shelter.
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    The weight I was carrying
    was just too much for me.
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    Even the semester before
    I was having some trouble.
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    I take medication.
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    And I was living in a living
    room, which was stressful.
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    I worked the logistics out for me and
    coming home late and from work and trying
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    to manage my health on top of my
    school and academics and music.
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    >> In 2001 I experienced homelessness for
    the first time as a pregnant young woman.
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    I also struggled with drug addiction
    and all the other issues that come along
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    with it, incarceration and all of that.
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    It put me in a spot where I had
    to access the shelter system.
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    And off and on I was in transitional living
    and then I would go from here to there living
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    on the streets, staying in like a flea
    bag hotel to like being out all night.
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    It happened from like 2000 to, I
    want to say 2007 like off and on.
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    >> Yeah I used to go to this
    gas station and eat.
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    There's a lot of like just fast food and
    just things that I used to come to eat
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    and just hang out outside, at night mainly.
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    And then down the street on Shotwell
    [phonetic] I used to go and take the back alleys
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    and my friend had a tent behind and I
    used to go and stay there sometimes, yeah.
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    >> We mostly just like slept in the library.
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    I saw a lot of people like sleeping in the
    library so I didn't think it was like a weird
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    thing and it was just kind
    of like, ok, I'm tired.
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    I'm just going to go take a nap in the
    library, also the break room at work.
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    My roommate and I were both homeless
    but we didn't have like the same
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    schedules so it was kind of
    like, hey, where are you?
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    And then after work we'd kind of be
    like hey, like where we going to go?
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    So it was a lot of like empty time.
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    And we weren't like freaking out about
    school and like getting our work done.
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    [ Music ]
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    I think upstairs like by the new third
    floor they have just like rows and rows
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    and so we would just kind
    of like sit there and sleep.
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    After midnight this is closed
    so we kind of just like stick
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    to here, like research, backpack down.
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    >> I remember sitting on this
    spot, just kind of people watching.
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    So yeah I was just walking around
    campus, anything to keep us busy, yeah.
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    >> Using public bathrooms sometimes,
    going to the library a lot of the times.
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    Back then they didn't have the
    [inaudible] so I didn't have that resource.
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    There's only very limited places in the city
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    where you can take a shower
    and the lines are very long.
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    And so just being able to like go to
    the thrift store, go to St. Anthony's
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    to get clothes, things like that.
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    >> Right now I live in a place called
    Larkin [phonetic] Youth Services.
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    It's a homeless shelter for kids ages 18 to 24
    and it's located in the Tenderloin neighborhood
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    of San Francisco right on the
    border of Van Ness and Ellis.
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    My family and I all live together in a
    house in Palo Alto so I was always granted
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    with the privilege of having, you know,
    a room to come home to after school.
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    I was inexperienced with a ton of like
    stress from at a young age like that
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    where you don't have a place
    to go to, like a home base,
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    but it's more recent towards the start of
    college when we all decided in my family to move
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    out of the house, was when I started
    experiencing that experience.
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    >> It was not only scary, really heavy.
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    We had to much clothes.
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    We were unprepared so we packed
    too much of the wrong stuff
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    so yeah it was definitely stressful having to
    lug all our stuff around from place to place
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    and all our valuables we
    had to always keep on us
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    so it's a little stressful, my
    laptops and stuff like that.
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    I think actually the whole time we felt unsafe.
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    We didn't not have a moment where we
    were just like awe, like you know?
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    We're just kind of always alert.
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    We both work downtown pretty
    late so then we'd just
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    kind of be like shuffling around with nowhere
    to go, kind of just endlessly wandering.
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    >> I think not only finding
    but keeping a job is hard.
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    I work here and I see people that
    do have jobs and they'll come
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    in the morning early, 4:00, 5:00,
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    to sign up for a bed and then they'll come
    back at 7:00 to pick up their reservation.
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    And I wasn't working when I was homeless.
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    I can't even imagine working full time
    and not being able to like lay your head
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    down or rest and put up your feet.
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    It must be hard.
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    >> It's draining, it's like taxing
    on yourself and your mind, your body,
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    you have to be very limited
    in what you carry around.
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    If you have a chance to have a
    locker here that will help too
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    but there's only certain hours
    that you can have access to it.
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    But I see people day after day have jobs.
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    >> It's definitely got me to think about
    that extra time to spend with friends,
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    you know, take care of my health.
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    I don't have to spend money on being
    in hospitals the rest of my life.
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    I can spend money on practicing guitar and
    maybe promoting myself, maybe devote that money
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    into like investing in my profession.
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    >> We went to the psychiatrist.
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    It was a time when we were just like really
    stressed out with school and everything.
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    And my friend, she gets depressed so we both
    went to the psychiatrist person and we talked
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    to them and they had told us about
    like homeless shelters but we didn't
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    really feel that we belonged
    in a homeless shelter.
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    It wouldn't have been a good fit for us.
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    So we didn't use those resources.
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    My freshman year was kind of just like
    going through all that and I was just kind
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    of like, is this what college is like?
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    But towards the end of that
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    I found some friends and
    that's what really helped.
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    >> I was hospitalized towards
    the end of the year.
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    And then the doctors through Keiser were able
    to find housing for me through the insurance.
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    They were helpful in locating me to Larkin.
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    It's really tough to get in, like
    you've got to call every morning.
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    You don't pay rent there but you've got to
    like do the foot work to get a bed there
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    and then maintain that same amount
    of work to continue to live there.
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    So it was through my medical provider,
    thankfully, that I have the place.
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    Otherwise I would have been me like digging
    through phone books or like the internet,
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    going to the library every day trying
    to find like somewhere to live.
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    >> There was a vicious cycle
    that I just couldn't get out of.
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    I wanted to get out but I just didn't know how.
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    I didn't know how to start.
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    I didn't know who to go to.
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    I didn't know like what first step to take.
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    And that was super hard for me.
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    I knew that I wanted something
    better for me and my family.
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    So I was able to work with a really
    good case manager and I applied
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    for all the housing options,
    which are very limited.
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    But they had this community housing partnership
    that was available to 44 of the families
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    that were in the shelter and I was able to
    get in one of those and I'm still there now.
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    And because of that I'm able to pursue
    my education because I'm not worried
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    about all the rent that I am paying you know
    especially now in San Francisco it's crazy,
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    ridiculous amounts of rent.
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    Being in a supportive environment
    where I'm only paying 30 percent
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    of my income just makes it so much easier.
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    I am able to go to school and then work
    towards my goal of being self-sufficient.
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    >> People think of a college today they
    think of them in a dorm or somewhere
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    at a party getting drunk or something like that.
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    They don't think about the
    other side in finding a place,
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    they just expect us to have a place and we
    don't, especially if we live off campus,
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    there's not a lot of help out there for
    us and the housing is really competitive.
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    [ Music ]
Title:
SF State college students share their experiences with homelessness
Description:

A California State University survey released in February reported that roughly 8 percent of students experienced homelessness in 2015. Of the 23 schools surveyed, SF State’s support offerings for housing and food insecure students fell below average.

In the video: Golden Gate Xpress speaks with three people who faced housing insecurity during their time as college students.

For more information: To read more about how SF State is helping students who face housing insecurity, visit bit.ly/29g3DNZ

Produced by: Avery Peterson

Music by: Blue Dot Sessions

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Video Language:
English
Duration:
10:01

English subtitles

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