Kathy Shely, 55, had been a social worker with the county of San Diego for 22 years when her mother became terminally ill in 2017. Even though her life, her finances, and especially her health benefits would be quite different if she had kept her job another three years, she gave notice to care for her mother. She put some of her money into CDs that she swore she wouldn’t touch for ten years, and the rest she spent on making sure her mother was comfortable. One of her mother’s three wishes was to never ever wear diapers. “She wanted white cotton briefs size eight from WalMart,” Kathy said. “And she wanted Pepsi and Cheetos always at her disposal.” What shocked Kathy was the price of underwear for an incontinent person. Her mother sometimes went through three packs of underwear a day. At $15 a pack for three and a half years, Kathy said she spent upwards of $45,000.

Kathy was living with her mother while she cared for her full time, but once her mother passed away in early 2021, the state came to collect on her mother’s debts. “I hadn’t even written the obituary yet,” when people from the state knocked on the door and said “hand me the keys.” She wasn’t sure what her mother had done to lose the equity in her home, but Kathy was pretty sure it had something to do with a boyfriend she had been with after she’d divorced Kathy’s father. “This guy was a cocaine head, he was a drunk, and he took her for every last penny she had and then some,” Kathy said. She has since resigned herself to it, but that process put her out on the streets with no job and no home.

She has managed to keep her dignity, she said, by standing up to people who want to bully her, or who want her to perform some sex act in exchange for everything from cigarettes to water. She has been taking advantage of the Triangle Project, which offers people on the streets in the area of Commercial Avenue and 16th Street $2 for every bag of trash they bring to a large dumpster twice a week, so she can save up to buy a taser. “I’ve been hit so many times out here because I won’t have sex with men, or anybody for that matter. You know, just asking for a light or a cigarette… they want sexual acts to get it and I won’t do it.”

She has gone 100% deaf in one ear after being hit when she denied someone sex. That has caused her equilibrium to shift so much she thinks she is standing straight when in actuality she is leaning right. Her face was sliced another time, and she had a bump on the side of her head for weeks after an attack two months ago. Her cell phone, camera, and paperwork has all been stolen each time she replaces those items.

All of this hasn’t dampened Kathy’s naturally positive nature. She is quick to greet friends on the street, talkative, helpful, and funny. When another unsheltered person needs new clothes, she goes off to find a donation center for him. When an opportunity for work is mentioned, she raises her hand, or tries to hook up a friend who is well suited for that job. She currently is working as a research assistant at UCSD, several hours a day, getting paid cash. Someone even comes to pick her up at the Alpha Project bridge shelter tent in Barrio Logan where she is currently staying until she is connected to supportive housing.

Asked what it took to get herself a bed in a shelter, she explains that one day she saw the Homeless Outreach Team driving by and flagged them down. The officers walked her over to the Alpha tent and stood by while she filled out the intake paperwork. Her personal history as a social worker with the county helps her understand the steps in the process from shelter bed to actual housing. Because she came in through the HOT team, she not only has access to the housing navigator and case manager through Alpha, but also an additional social worker that “kind of trumps the navigator — they just pull everything together.” She’s hoping with hard work and perseverance she can keep her current job, and find permanent housing.

Kathy has other skills. Her first language was ASL, American sign language, since she is the only one in her family who is not deaf. Her parents, siblings, niece and nephew, are all deaf. She was often called upon at her county job to assist patients who were deaf or hard of hearing. She would like to apply those skills to help people on the street. “How many kids at the corner live on the corner because mom and dad never learned sign language, and they sit there all day?” She would like to bridge that gap, and make sure families at least know the basics like “I love you mom” or “I’m hungry” or “can we go to the library or on a walk.”

In fact she saw her job at the county as one of bridging gaps, small and large. For her, that bridge is people who treat her with kindness and respect. “And when they see me doing good, they smile instead of doing something to knock me down because I’m doing good.” Those people are what keeps her going, keep her positive. “I need to be around positive people and that don’t want to have sex at the end of the day. It’s not that I’m not a human. But where I’m at right now, I need supportive people in my life.”