A wise woman shared with me recently that homelessness can be understood one story at a time. While I don’t pretend to have all the answers to this complex problem, I know first hand how it happened to me. And how it has happened to a number of others.
I worked in Silicon Valley for over 20 years. Los Gatos is my hometown, and I am a fifth-generation Californian. While I longed for a deeper understanding of homelessness so that I could be a part of the solution, truly, I never thought it could or would ever happen to me. My assumption then was that three things caused people to live on the streets: mental illness, drug addiction, and alcoholism. Later on, it became clear that things like economics, disasters born of climate change, and persons fleeing abusive domestic situations, to name a few, were also contributing factors.
The first week of April 2017, I came to Santa Barbara, by train, with my service dog and a few suitcases, having left an abusive relationship. Having been told I had a bed in a place that helps women break the cycle of abuse, I was excited to begin a new, healing chapter. On the way south, I called this place, realizing I’d forgotten to get their address. A rather harried woman answered the phone, barking at me, “We’ve changed our mind. Go to mission. Go to PATH!”