Woman, disabled brother navigate Bay Area housing obstacle course
SAN FRANCISCO - It's estimated that there are nearly 40,000 homeless people in the Bay Area, many of whom are eligible for housing assistance. Getting that help, however, is a challenge that can take years. For Latrice Washington, a San Francisco woman trying to secure a home for her disabled brother, it is a monumental climb.
"Just making him some hot cereal," explained Latrice Washington. "Something that will stick to his stomach until lunchtime. Then I set my clock and I come back up."
Read part 2 of Leticia and Adolphus Washington's story
This is the morning routine for Washington, and every step of it is centered entirely on her younger brother.
"Chew your food. Chew your food Adolphus," Latrice told him as he made his way through his breakfast.
44-year-old Adolphus Jerome Washington has cerebral palsy and down syndrome. He is also legally blind.
"The reason why his hand is up like that is because he protects his food," Latrice explained. "When he was in school, being that he's blind, the kids would take his food. So he has one hand up."
And while she serves as his primary caregiver, they are both effectively homeless, and have been for over a year now. Most recently, Adolphus has been sleeping on an air mattress in a family member's small apartment.
"That's who I'm focused on," Latrice said of her brother. "I can make it. He can't make it out on the street."
As for Latrice, her focus on helping her family members has resulted in her own needs taking something of a back seat, and that's exactly where she has been living.
"I sleep in my car," she said, even though her daughter offers her space in the apartment where Adolphus sleeps. "She does. All my kids, they're like 'mom, please don't stay outside.' It's just my pride. This is me. I'm fine. As long as I can shower, wash my body, get something to eat. I'm fine. I can sleep like this.".
So as day turns to night, she will run the car to fight off the cold and try to get as much sleep as possible, before it's time to go to work.
"12 midnight to eight in the morning," she said of her shift. "And my daughter watches my brother until I get off work. I'm thankful for this job. You don't know how many interviews I went through to get it. So I'm thankful for it."
Eight hours later, it's back to the car, back across town and back to her brother. Fresh off the overnight shift, she'll resume the job of caregiver, and this is the routine, closing in on 13 months.
"Like I said, it's about my brother," she said of the search for a home. "And hopefully Tuesday they let us know the good news and he gets his apartment."
That is something these two siblings share with a lot of people in San Francisco, and tens of thousands of people around the Bay Area. They're in the pipeline for help, only they're barely moving at all. The housing shortage has brought the system that delivers housing assistance to a crawl. If people with substantial resources are struggling to find a home, it's exponentially harder when trying to do it with a Section 8 voucher.
"This is another voucher, because I had to get another extension," Latrice said, holding up a stack of paperwork. "I think I've got a total of three extensions already and I'm just wondering if they're trying to burn it out and just take it away. What do you give people Section 8 for if you're not gonna help them or assist them with it."
With the clock ticking on her latest voucher extension, things are about to get even more difficult. She'll need more money, more documents and more help with her search for a home very much up in the air - and to be continued.
"One day, this is going to be over," she said, sitting in her car at night. "It's not gonna last forever. As long as I do what I need to do, and just stay positive. So I'm staying positive, staying humble, and being still."