Gypsy explains her black eye and how she defended herself against an attempted sexual assault in downtown San Diego. The assailant had been taunting her for days, and one night he grabbed her and slammed her head against a wall and then the ground thinking that would subdue her enough to rape her. But she grew up tough, learned to defend herself. She is often running into young women who have just arrived on the streets, and offers them advise about who to trust and how to keep your belongings from being stolen. She has her own theories about why men feel it’s okay to assault women.

Destiny Jones, 62, feels she is finally emerging from the broken and torn pieces that constituted her childhood and early adult years. Overcoming the depression, anxiety and bipolar diagnoses that generated from multiple childhood abuses, and the addictions she used to deny everything, she has found her voice and her soul in music. Now she wants to help others find their self-worth.

At age 65, she has been living on the streets for 52 years; most recently six years in San Diego, three years in Oceanside. Her father threw her out when she was 13. “He told me to ‘get the fuck out. You’re old enough to find a place, get a job.’ So I moved in with friends but I still went to school.” She got her GED eventually in prison, on her birthday. “They see you but they don’t see you,” DaVida told me about that people passing by on the sidewalk bordering Balboa Park.

Rachel Hayes knows she’s a strong woman. After spending eleven years homeless, establishing safe camping sites and building trusting communities of friends in and around East Village, Petco Park and a canyon in Lemon Grove, Rachel has navigated her way into permanent housing. Free from the daily struggle to survive on the streets, she is leveraging her new situation into time spent advocating for others - helping them secure resources or manage paperwork. She is considering a run for city council.

It takes less than a minute of talking with Julie and looking into her eyes to know she is profoundly intelligent. Like many of the thousands of people living unsheltered on San Diego’s streets, the circumstances that caused her to become homeless are complex, personal, and often misunderstood. Her difficulties navigating the layered bureaucracy in place to get vulnerable individuals into housing and health care services are not unique, but in Julie’s case they are compounded by the myriad stereotypes heaped onto people with physical limitations.

Leaning against the bed that takes up most of her 400 square foot apartment, Phyllis can’t resist handing over another rawhide chew to her emotional support dog Taz. As the four year anniversary of being “inside” approaches, Blanck confesses that she still feels suspended in limbo. “I’m having a rough time, to tell you the truth,” she said. “There’s no sense of community. I am not part of the homeless community, and I don’t feel part of the housed community either.”

Kathy Shely has a naturally positive demeanor and upbeat outlook on life. After working as a social worker for the county for 22 years, then caring for her terminally ill mother for more than three years, being out on the streets doesn’t deter her from gravitating towards connecting people to what would improve their quality of life. Once her mother passed away and the state swooped in to take possession of her mother’s house, Kathy found herself on the street, having to fight to keep her sanity and dignity, even physically having to fight when she refused to have sex with someone in exchange for a cigarette or bottle of water.

Raven Jones, 62, moved to San Diego from New York when she was six years old. She was homeless for a while, ostracized for being trans and Black. You can spot Raven several blocks away because her outfits are always flowing and colorful. Though she is discriminating about who she associates with, Raven is generous, often giving away her jewelry when someone shows an interest in a particular piece.

Rosie has a message for other people who have struggled with balancing homelessness, family complexities and mental instability. She also has a message for housed people who cling to stereotypes about people experiencing homelessness. Family is not the people who kicked you out when you were down. Nor the husband who told your kids you abandoned them. Family is the network of strangers who gave you medications and a place to live, a routine and eventually a housing voucher.