With all of their belongings packed into a stroller, Gabriella Crespo and her 14-year-old son, Adeimis, wait outside an emergency homeless shelter in the Mission District each night, wondering whether there will be space on a school gymnasium floor for them to sleep.
Crespo, who fled Venezuela around a month ago to escape sexual violence and political turbulence, said she was forced onto a bus in Texas before being dropped off at an Oakland BART station on April 12.
She was then instructed by immigration authorities to take a train to the Embarcadero, she said, where a San Francisco police officer took them to the makeshift shelter at Buena Vista Horace Mann K-8 Community School on Valencia Street.
But weeks later, Crespo and her son have been unable to officially secure a spot to sleep.
“I heard this was a sanctuary city,” Crespo told The Standard. “But it’s been really difficult.”
A total of 372 families were in line for shelter as of Tuesday, according to the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing, representing a dramatic leap since December, when 238 families were on the waitlist. Staff at the shelter have told The Standard they’re forced to turn away several families every night due to a lack of funding.
In a statement, the department attributed the surge to an influx of migrants, admitting the city’s homelessness response system is ill-equipped to help the families.
“The Homelessness Response System is not always the most appropriate system of care for migrant families,” the department said in a statement. “While it is crucial to respond to newcomers, the City must also balance the existing demand for shelter.”
Mayor London Breed’s office didn’t respond to The Standard’s request for comment. An advocacy group for the migrants told The Standard it would be meeting with her staff on Wednesday.
The homelessness department said it’s speeding up its rate of moving families out of the shelter and into housing to free up space. The department said it funds nearly 1,000 housing units for families, along with 540 long-term rental vouchers and over 800 subsidies for those who were recently homeless. It also noted that a portion of the families on the shelter waitlist are staying in hotels funded by the city.
The department said it’s working in collaboration with the Office of Civic Engagement and Immigrant Affairs and the Department of Human Services to “develop and implement a citywide strategy for meeting the legal, service and housing needs of these newcomers.”
Every night at Buena Vista Horace Mann, dozens of these families sleep on the floor with curtains demarcating their assigned spaces. Some families have multiple children, and many have lived inside the gym for several months.
By 6 p.m., families are waiting at a nearby McDonald’s on 24th Street for the shelter to open at 7 p.m. The following morning, at 7 a.m., they must pack up all of their belongings and leave the gym for the day.
Without a place to store their belongings, Crespo and her son, Adeimis, said they haven't been able to leave the Mission neighborhood. Adeimis told The Standard he hasn’t seen the Golden Gate Bridge and that he’s developed a rash from sleeping on the gym’s floor.
Crespo said if they’re unable to find a more permanent place to live soon, she will have to leave San Francisco.
Rocio Blas, another immigrant mother from Peru, came to San Francisco in October with her husband and their 6-year-old daughter to escape persecution. She declined to provide details about what type of violence they were fleeing.
Blas said she underwent similar struggles after arriving in the city, spending many nights bouncing between the school’s gym, hotels and the streets before eventually landing at the Oasis Inn, where the family now has a shelter room to call their own.
“It’s been a constant struggle, especially for my daughter,” Blas said. “San Francisco is not the type of place we expected.”