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One year ago, Cristina — a local teacher, mother and survivor — was doing her best to make her temporary home festive for her three young boys. Christmas saw the family staying in a hotel room in Burlingame where they lived for three months. Cristina did her best to prepare her kids’ favorite meals on a hot plate and decorated the room with the few holiday items she could find.
It had not always been this way. A series of milestone events and circumstances contributed to the family’s predicament. Her husband’s addiction, stolen savings, the end of a marriage, and eventually, an unexpected eviction, left this family without a home.
“I never imagined that we’d be homeless,” she said. A life-long San Mateo County resident, born in Redwood City, she always had steady employment and a good education.
Struggling to find her path as a suddenly single mother, she was informed that she earned too much money as a teacher to qualify for a low-income two-bedroom apartment, but landlords were not able to rent a one-bedroom to a family of four. After more than three months in the hotel, she could no longer afford the cost of their stay as her savings had been lost during the breakup of her marriage.
Then, Cristina learned about First Step for Families, the LifeMoves emergency interim housing site in San Mateo. It was there that the family began to move forward with their lives in January 2023.
Over the course of several months, Cristina was able to focus on saving money and working with her case manager to plan for a life of independence. Her boys flourished, taking advantage of the library, computer lab and summer camp activities. Staff at First Step for Families helped Cristina and her boys heal from the trauma of being homeless.
Life Moves is one of the beneficiaries of The Almanac’s Holiday Fund. Donations are divided equally among this year’s 10 nonprofit organizations and 100% of the funds raised go directly to the recipients. Donations to the Holiday Fund can be made at almanacnews.com/holiday_fund.
Since 1987, LifeMoves has given our neighbors experiencing homelessness a temporary place to call home while providing intensive, customized case management through both site-based programs and community outreach. In the most recent fiscal year, LifeMoves provided more than 308,000 nights of shelter and returned nearly 1,800 clients to stable housing.
On any given night, LifeMoves feeds, clothes and houses approximately 1,575 individuals across our 26 shelter and service sites within San Mateo and Santa Clara Counties, including Haven Family House, our interim housing site in Menlo Park that focuses on unsheltered families.
LifeMoves supportive services include employment counseling, housing locator assistance, financial literacy, benefits enrollment, health care referrals, substance use disorder counseling and behavioral health support services to our clients. Families are provided with all household necessities free of charge so that they can save money and build a nest egg for when they secure their own home. Items provided include nutritious meal components, clothing, access to laundry, school supplies for children, and diapers and formula for infants.
Because homelessness is especially traumatic for children, all LifeMoves interim housing sites serving families employ Children’s Services Coordinators who assist families with locating childcare, connecting children to needed services and coordinating educational programs. Children receive access to tutoring, STEM-based educational workshops and more.
Last year, across all of locations, 92% of families and 66% of all individuals who engaged in LifeMoves programming returned to stable housing.
Christmas came a little early this year for Cristina’s family. Earlier this month, she moved her family into their new two-bedroom apartment, where they are looking forward to making many happy memories. With this move, her children have stability and are able to continue their education and activities at their current schools.
Cristina is proud of how far they have come and all she accomplished during her time at LifeMoves: “I am going to school to further my career and increase my income. I was able to raise my credit score by 166 points in a year! Christmas looks a little different for us this year.”
Nacole Barth-Ellis is senior grant writer for LifeMoves.
