- You can just make a cameo, Sadie.
- [Interviewer] Dawn.
- Yes.
- [Interviewer] We're here in San Francisco.
- Yes.
- [Interviewer] You're homeless, panhandling to
do the hotel thing. - Staying alive.
Yeah.
- [Interviewer] And you're pregnant.
- Yeah,
that's not a new
development.
- [Interviewer] It's gotta be horrible.
- Yeah, it's really, really hard.
I came here from New York,
and there's a lot more services here
than there are in New York, but
if you don't, I don't have a lot of extra time
between paying for staying inside.
I'm terrified sleeping on the street,
I've had bad shit happen to me here.
I don't have--
- [Interviewer] Well yeah, being a woman
out on the street is horrible.
- Yeah, it's very, very, very unsafe. (laughs)
- [Interviewer] Anybody being out on the street is horrible,
but women go through a lot of abuse.
- Yeah, so I don't have time to access
a lot of the services, I didn't even know
about a lot of them when I first got here.
So
I don't know.
I came here because I'd been, I was a drug addict,
I started shooting heroin when I was 12, and--
- [Interviewer] 12?
- Yeah, my parents were both junkies, they're both addicts.
Moved here, did the whole hopping trains, squatting thing
'til I was 28, and
was pregnant with my second son.
I had already lost custody of my first son,
and I decided that I was done with being on the street,
done with the dope.
- [Interviewer] So wait.
You basically were traveling as a kid.
- Yeah, oh yeah.
- [Interviewer] Out doing the traveling thing.
- Yeah, my dad was a Deadhead, the whole thing.
- [Interviewer] You know what I mean?
And here you are as a young adult,
and you're out on the streets.
- Yeah.
- [Interviewer] I've often wondered if it happens
to a lot of the kids.
- It does. (laughs)
There's actually a group of us.
- [Interviewer] 'Cause it looks like fun.
- Yeah.
- [Interviewer] And then, you know.
- Well, when your parents don't get you
social security numbers, birth certificates, (laughs)
shit like that, no school records, no pictures. (laughs)
- [Interviewer] Right.
- So yeah, I came here.
I'm sorry, I'm having a bit of a weird day.
- [Interviewer] It's okay.
- But when I came here from New York, I tried,
I went to a program, gave birth to a healthy son,
and when you graduate a program, they didn't
provide us with any housing, they don't
set you up.
When you're in program, you're not allowed to get a job,
you're not allowed to do any of that stuff.
- [Interviewer] Right.
- So you're leaving program with less,
because they also take 80% of your income
and all your food stamps, so you actually come out with less
than what you went in there with.
- [Interviewer] Right, the programs aren't coordinated
with housing and other support services.
- And when they know that they're releasing you,
when you graduate,
and you have to wait to get on a housing list.
But if you don't stay in their shelters,
which, for me, was a spot in Bayview, in Hunters Point,
in a gym on a floor. (laughs)
They called CPS because I was living in a hotel room.
And I lost custody of my son,
relapsed for about a year,
and
went back into program, and
graduated and here I am. (laughs)
Same thing, and it's fuckin' impossible
to get inside anywhere.
We were living with a guy after we got out of program,
we had connected with someone,
and I was lucky he let me and my dog stay there.
And we lived with him for about two and a half years now.
And he just got evicted.
- [Interviewer] So that put you back out on the street.
- Yeah.
I was working, I finally got a
license to do home health care work,
to be a home health aide,
and I was working for him, and once he got
evicted,
he wanted to fight the proceedings
and he wouldn't be able to do it with me there,
so pretty much I had to leave.
And lost my job (laughs) at the same time.
- [Interviewer] So sorry.
- Yeah.
But it gets better.
- [Interviewer] It's ups and downs.
If you had three wishes, what would they be?
- That I would have taken
full advantage of some of the opportunities
that I had when I was younger.
Definitely stayed in school. (laughs)
And
never, ever, ever, ever would have started doing drugs.
(laughs)
Ever.
So.
- [Interviewer] Well, thank you very much for talking to me.
- And good luck with your
thing, that sounds pretty cool.
I'm glad people get a voice. (laughs)