SF State college students share their experiences with homelessness

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

[ Music ]

>> I never thought I'd be homeless.

I felt like it was us against the world.

Coming to San Francisco we
had all these high hopes.

We were like campus is a great place.

It's beautiful.

We're so excited, you know.

We had all these hopes and then we came out
here and it's just like damn, it's really hard.

Housing has been pretty difficult to come by.

I first moved out here and I found a
place with a friend who lived off campus.

But then she got evicted so we both had to leave
or pay like $1000 just to stay another night.

So we're just kind of like walking
the street, one of our friends offered

to let us keep our stuff at her house while we
like moved around, back and forward to school

and we were able to spend some
nights with her but not all the time.

Sometimes we wouldn't have anywhere to go so
we would just kind of wander around school,

wait until our friend would be
like hey, you can come over.

It was really difficult.

>> Ever since I graduated high school at
the age of 18 I was actually homeless.

What's kind of led to me to this point was
stress, I think, the amount of stress of working

and going to school at the same
time was taking its toll on me.

So by this year I started
living in the homeless shelter.

The weight I was carrying
was just too much for me.

Even the semester before
I was having some trouble.

I take medication.

And I was living in a living
room, which was stressful.

I worked the logistics out for me and
coming home late and from work and trying

to manage my health on top of my
school and academics and music.

>> In 2001 I experienced homelessness for
the first time as a pregnant young woman.

I also struggled with drug addiction
and all the other issues that come along

with it, incarceration and all of that.

It put me in a spot where I had
to access the shelter system.

And off and on I was in transitional living
and then I would go from here to there living

on the streets, staying in like a flea
bag hotel to like being out all night.

It happened from like 2000 to, I
want to say 2007 like off and on.

>> Yeah I used to go to this
gas station and eat.

There's a lot of like just fast food and
just things that I used to come to eat

and just hang out outside, at night mainly.

And then down the street on Shotwell
[phonetic] I used to go and take the back alleys

and my friend had a tent behind and I
used to go and stay there sometimes, yeah.

>> We mostly just like slept in the library.

I saw a lot of people like sleeping in the
library so I didn't think it was like a weird

thing and it was just kind
of like, ok, I'm tired.

I'm just going to go take a nap in the
library, also the break room at work.

My roommate and I were both homeless
but we didn't have like the same

schedules so it was kind of
like, hey, where are you?

And then after work we'd kind of be
like hey, like where we going to go?

So it was a lot of like empty time.

And we weren't like freaking out about
school and like getting our work done.

[ Music ]

I think upstairs like by the new third
floor they have just like rows and rows

and so we would just kind
of like sit there and sleep.

After midnight this is closed
so we kind of just like stick

to here, like research, backpack down.

>> I remember sitting on this
spot, just kind of people watching.

So yeah I was just walking around
campus, anything to keep us busy, yeah.

>> Using public bathrooms sometimes,
going to the library a lot of the times.

Back then they didn't have the
[inaudible] so I didn't have that resource.

There's only very limited places in the city

where you can take a shower
and the lines are very long.

And so just being able to like go to
the thrift store, go to St. Anthony's

to get clothes, things like that.

>> Right now I live in a place called
Larkin [phonetic] Youth Services.

It's a homeless shelter for kids ages 18 to 24
and it's located in the Tenderloin neighborhood

of San Francisco right on the
border of Van Ness and Ellis.

My family and I all live together in a
house in Palo Alto so I was always granted

with the privilege of having, you know,
a room to come home to after school.

I was inexperienced with a ton of like
stress from at a young age like that

where you don't have a place
to go to, like a home base,

but it's more recent towards the start of
college when we all decided in my family to move

out of the house, was when I started
experiencing that experience.

>> It was not only scary, really heavy.

We had to much clothes.

We were unprepared so we packed
too much of the wrong stuff

so yeah it was definitely stressful having to
lug all our stuff around from place to place

and all our valuables we
had to always keep on us

so it's a little stressful, my
laptops and stuff like that.

I think actually the whole time we felt unsafe.

We didn't not have a moment where we
were just like awe, like you know?

We're just kind of always alert.

We both work downtown pretty
late so then we'd just

kind of be like shuffling around with nowhere
to go, kind of just endlessly wandering.

>> I think not only finding
but keeping a job is hard.

I work here and I see people that
do have jobs and they'll come

in the morning early, 4:00, 5:00,

to sign up for a bed and then they'll come
back at 7:00 to pick up their reservation.

And I wasn't working when I was homeless.

I can't even imagine working full time
and not being able to like lay your head

down or rest and put up your feet.

It must be hard.

>> It's draining, it's like taxing
on yourself and your mind, your body,

you have to be very limited
in what you carry around.

If you have a chance to have a
locker here that will help too

but there's only certain hours
that you can have access to it.

But I see people day after day have jobs.

>> It's definitely got me to think about
that extra time to spend with friends,

you know, take care of my health.

I don't have to spend money on being
in hospitals the rest of my life.

I can spend money on practicing guitar and
maybe promoting myself, maybe devote that money

into like investing in my profession.

>> We went to the psychiatrist.

It was a time when we were just like really
stressed out with school and everything.

And my friend, she gets depressed so we both
went to the psychiatrist person and we talked

to them and they had told us about
like homeless shelters but we didn't

really feel that we belonged
in a homeless shelter.

It wouldn't have been a good fit for us.

So we didn't use those resources.

My freshman year was kind of just like
going through all that and I was just kind

of like, is this what college is like?

But towards the end of that

I found some friends and
that's what really helped.

>> I was hospitalized towards
the end of the year.

And then the doctors through Keiser were able
to find housing for me through the insurance.

They were helpful in locating me to Larkin.

It's really tough to get in, like
you've got to call every morning.

You don't pay rent there but you've got to
like do the foot work to get a bed there

and then maintain that same amount
of work to continue to live there.

So it was through my medical provider,
thankfully, that I have the place.

Otherwise I would have been me like digging
through phone books or like the internet,

going to the library every day trying
to find like somewhere to live.

>> There was a vicious cycle
that I just couldn't get out of.

I wanted to get out but I just didn't know how.

I didn't know how to start.

I didn't know who to go to.

I didn't know like what first step to take.

And that was super hard for me.

I knew that I wanted something
better for me and my family.

So I was able to work with a really
good case manager and I applied

for all the housing options,
which are very limited.

But they had this community housing partnership
that was available to 44 of the families

that were in the shelter and I was able to
get in one of those and I'm still there now.

And because of that I'm able to pursue
my education because I'm not worried

about all the rent that I am paying you know
especially now in San Francisco it's crazy,

ridiculous amounts of rent.

Being in a supportive environment
where I'm only paying 30 percent

of my income just makes it so much easier.

I am able to go to school and then work
towards my goal of being self-sufficient.

>> People think of a college today they
think of them in a dorm or somewhere

at a party getting drunk or something like that.

They don't think about the
other side in finding a place,

they just expect us to have a place and we
don't, especially if we live off campus,

there's not a lot of help out there for
us and the housing is really competitive.

[ Music ]