Unhoused United
At an intersection where most drivers roll up their windows and lock their doors, Sadri, 23, bounces out of the car and pops the trunk. Two men who had been quietly smoking cigarettes in the shade across the street immediately gravitate towards Mesean Sadri and his open trunk. Slowly, others leave the shade to get in line for a slice, a bottle of water and a kind word. “I thought I was already empathetic,” Sadri said. “But being out here made me a lot more empathetic, a lot more understanding, a lot more educated.”
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Serenity
Serenity Rubalcaba, 20, takes her time gathering belongings and carrying them from one side of the street to the other, stepping over the trolley tracks that run down the median of Commercial Avenue in San Diego’s East Village. The sidewalks are getting hotter quickly with the summer’s first blistering heat wave. A San Diego native, she attended Clairemont High School, leaving just five credits shy of her diploma. The insecurity of being bounced around foster care homes and juvenile hall made it difficult to concentrate on her studies. And then there’s her daughter.
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Art and Soul
Art gives our spirits a chance to soar, to reflect on and reframe the situations we are dealing with. Everywhere I meet up with individuals experiencing homelessness, I discover artists - painters, musicians, crafters of jewelry or pottery or textile arts, singers, poets, and sketch artists. It speaks to the perseverance of the soul and lifts up the creative voice. Here are some of the artists I photographed that ended up featured in San Diego Magazine.
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Voices of Our City Choir
Beginning with the early days when San Diego’s Voices of Our City Choir co-creator singer-songwriter Steph Johnson walked the streets offering oranges and a song to unsheltered members of the community, this unique coming together of souls has changed the lives of those who participate as well as those who hear them sing.
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Tabor
Tabor Wright, 30, is proud of being clean and sober. He was born in Southwest Colorado. When his father died in 2015 however, Tabor started shooting heroin. He came out to San Diego to get away from it all and entered a sober living home. He lasted only four days there because he felt like he was being judged for being gay by the Christians who ran the place. Now, however, he is worried that when he leaves the sober living place he is at now, without an income, he may end up homeless again.
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Harm Reduction Coalition
The local Harm Reduction Coalition holds street medicine outreach events despite looming rain clouds and a cold wind. They offer packages of fresh syringes, backpacks, clothing, food and Naloxene (Narcan). The Harm Reduction Coalition began operation in October 2022 following approval from the California Department of Public Health office of AIDS. According to the group’s executive director Tara Stamos-Buesig, they have also been doing syringe service outreach three days a week. San Diego County Board of Supervisors voted in favor of developing a needle exchange program, essentially repealing the ban on such programs enacted in 1997.
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Rose
When the pandemic lockdown restrictions were first enacted in March, Rose, 21, and her boyfriend were suddenly locked out of the park they called home. The worst part was not being able to shower for long periods of time. If you were getting pretty ripe, and the bathrooms were open, you could scare up a bird bath type of washing. Or, if you had a pair of pliers, you could open up any random water spigot.
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Tito
Tito is used to staying in the shadows, or with family or friends until he wears out his welcome. It’s a routine that was embedded into his lifestyle at an early age. He was born in Oregon, but his mother ended up homeless in San Diego, living in a tent on the street when he was still a baby. Once his mother found work they were able to secure housing. “Southeast raised me real hard,” he said. His goal is to get his GED and find a way to make a sustainable income. “This life is relentless,” he said. “It’s horrible to be homeless.”
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Tiffany
Tiffany wants her child back. After a life in and out of foster care herself, she doesn’t want the baby that was taken from her six months ago to grow up with the same experiences she endured. A ward of the state till she was age 22, Tiffany struggled with mental health issues, addiction and homelessness. After having six other children, three of whom died either in childbirth or soon after, she is committed to creating a stable situation for herself, get an education, and find a way to build a day center for homeless youth.
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Campground Halloween
About 40 children live at the temporary campground for homeless families and individuals set up in the far east corner of a parking lot for city vehicles. With the security of safe place to call home, that doesn't have to be packed up every day and moved, kids are afforded the luxury of actually celebrating some of the small moments of childhood; like dressing up for Halloween. A representative from the San Diego City Attorney's office arrived to deliver costumes just in time for the children to celebrate a Halloween carnival organized by the Alpha Project, the campground supervising agency. Alpha also supplies three meals a day for those in the campground and gives the children rides to and from school each day.
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Sam
Sam, 23, dodged her mother's mental health episodes till she was finally tossed out of her Oceanside home at age 16. On the streets, other young people were jealous of her fortitude, staying away from drugs, refusing to sell her body for favors like a place to stay or getting high. So they beat her up and overdosed her. She ended up in the hospital, dying three times. When she went to retrieve her belongings upon release from medical care, she was arrested and jailed for having drugs in her system. She moved in with a boyfriend who soon started beating her and threatened their baby. He was arrested and she found help with a street mom who encouraged her to go live with her father, which she did. There she "got her shit together", got a job, then moved into her own apartment. Now Sam has a husband in the Marines, her own income from a good waitressing job, and is moving away from San Diego to live with her in-laws while her husband is deployed. "Life couldn't be no more better," she said.
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Brittany and Joey
At the point most people would call rock bottom, these two met. And through an act of compassion they became an unlikely but complimentary couple, married nearly four years now. Both were abused as children, were in and out of CPS, CYA, and had seriously combative home lives growing up. After his mother committed suicide, he suppressed his emotions and lashed out at everyone, including prison guards. She went through the foster care system and escaped being sex trafficked to fend for herself. Despite physical ailments and no reason whatsoever to trust anyone ever again, they found a quiet storm in supporting each other against the world. They would really like to find a normal living situation and even menial labor so they could start life afresh together.
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Nomad
Nomad, 23, grew up between Kentucky and California, from abusive parents to grandparents, back to parents then a group home where his finished high school. After witnessing someone fatally caught in a woodchipper as a child, he developed paranoid schizophrenia and still suffers from it. He and his infant son weer kicked out of his father's home, then his mother took custody of the boy. Nomad doesn't trust anyone. Street people call him the philosopher because he writes poetry and tries to empathize with everyone.
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Steven
Steven, 24, grew up in Fallbrook, never quite got along with a mother addicted to methadone, so he moved to Memphis to be near his father and work in construction. After his wife cheated on him, he left that world to return to San Diego, where he lasted just four days at his mother's place, and can't find a job. He and his girlfriend share a tent downtown and aren't sure what to do, now that she is pregnant.
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Derek
Derek Kleeman, 21, left the bickering of a home life to fend for himself on the streets. He hates violence and quotes Bible verses about humility. He keeps a lizard in his tent for company.
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