Everyone Needs a Safety Net

Imagine being homeless. Imagine trying to find or keep a job without a place to store a change of clothes and having to spend hours each day waiting in lines to get a warm meal or a roof over your head for the night. Imagine trying to control or recover from a physical or mental illness when you are spending your days exposed to the heat and cold in often unsanitary, unwelcoming and dangerous environments without promise of a full night’s sleep. This is reality for 7,350 homeless men, women and children in San Francisco. For the 105,600 people living below the poverty line who struggle to meet the demands of monthly rent payments that have risen around 30% in San Francisco in the past two years, one unexpected expenditure or misstep can land them in the streets.  Once homeless, it is difficult to return.

St. Anthony works hard to help people move off the streets and stay in housing during times of financial difficulties. Every Monday afternoon, after the dining room has emptied out, a crowd congregates in the main hall. With eviction notices and freshly signed rental agreements in hand they line up to explain their cases to the social workers.  Through St. Anthony’s rental assistance program, workers help qualified clients access funds to pay back rent they owe or put down security deposits to move into new residences. In the last year alone St Anthony’s has helped 265 clients with over $143,800 dollars of rental assistance.

Dan is a former client of the Social Work Center who struggled with addiction to drugs. After a relapse, he found himself unable to pay his rent and at risk of eviction. “I had no other options, if I couldn’t pay I was gonna be put onto the streets,” Dan recalled. As a last resort he turned to St. Anthony’s. To his relief, workers were able to help him pay back his rent.  About 6 months later, Dan successfully applied for housing in a safer neighborhood and through St. Anthony’s security deposit assistance program, was able to move in. The new apartment was a huge improvement. “The new place had no bed bugs or cockroaches and it was bigger and cheaper,” Dan told us. “In the old neighborhood I had been assaulted and mugged multiple times and you could look out the window and there would be people dealing and in the building people drank and did drugs in the open.” For Dan moving out of the unhealthy environment was truly a new beginning. Ever since, he has vowed to “never go down that road with drugs again” and has stayed clean  and sober for the past 11 months. All Dan needed was a second chance.  For men and women in similar situations with nowhere else to turn, a second chance can mean the world.  

Diane Qi was an intern with St. Anthony’s Social Work Center and St. Anthony Medical Clinic this summer.