Written by Lulu Yin and Christina Chang
Translated by H.B. Qin
Edited by Ida Eva Zielinska
Since 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic began, a team of Tzu Chi USA Northwest Region volunteers from the San Francisco Branch has visited the Candlestick RV Park in Bayview-Hunters Point once a week to provide supplies and assistance in this community where many undocumented immigrants from Central and South America reside. On August 24, 2024, the volunteers brought school supplies for students, including backpacks, uniforms, socks, toothpaste and toothbrushes, shampoo, etc., so these children, who have been living in the margins with their families for some time, can start the new academic year with confidence.
Extending a Helping Hand Where Challenges Abound
About 1,400 people live in 700 recreational vehicles (RVs) or other vehicles in San Francisco. Government agencies tend to categorize those who use such accommodation as full-time living quarters as “homeless.” The largest concentration of RVs is in the Bayview-Hunters Point neighborhood, where about 200 RVs and other vehicles serve residential purposes. When the pandemic broke out in 2020, Tzu Chi volunteers who had been assisting students from disadvantaged families and home-schooled children in that school district discovered the challenges facing most of the undocumented families living in Candlestick RV Park.
Most of the residents in this RV Park are undocumented immigrants from Central and South America who typically lack proficiency in English, as Spanish is their primary language. While their school-aged children can attend bilingual classes in public elementary schools in Bayview-Hunters Point, the parents struggle due to language barriers and more. Given their lack of papers, securing regular employment is difficult. Furthermore, they are ineligible for social welfare benefits. Consequently, these adults work low-paying part-time jobs to survive. However, due to San Francisco’s extremely high cost of living, they can’t even afford the monthly rent for an RV, so two or three families will share a single vehicle, with one family living in the front, another in the back, with a couch in the middle serving as a bed for another family at night. Such living conditions are incredibly challenging, indeed.
Miguel Jiang, a Tzu Chi volunteer who moved to San Francisco from Peru and is fluent in Spanish, is part of the team that cares for Candlestick RV Park residents. He says he feels sorry for them whenever he comes to assist, given their living conditions, with so many inhabitants crammed inside the tiny RV space that they must use for all their daily activities – eating, sleeping, and going to the bathroom.
I really hope that one day, the government and relevant authorities can help the RV residents to solve these problems so that their lives can be better.
The pandemic has had a severe impact on RV-residing families in terms of health, finances, work, life, and education. Tzu Chi volunteers obtained a list of disadvantaged students and parents needing help through the district’s schools and started coming to the Candlestick RV Park to assist. The San Francisco volunteer team now regularly distributes food once a week and toiletries and household items such as toothpaste, toothbrushes, toilet paper, shampoo, body wash, feminine products, and laundry detergent every two months to 50-80 families with kindergarten through high school students living in RVs.
The team also hosts annual distribution events that coincide with special days or holidays such as Easter, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Halloween, and Thanksgiving, as well as end-of-the-year distributions of winter clothing and small household appliances. Moreover, since education for their children is the hope of the disadvantaged families living in Candlestick RV Park to change their lives, helping students stay in school and learn is also the focus of assistance here. Apart from annual back-to-school distribution events, at the beginning of the new academic year, the volunteers come to the RV Park to help the children clean up and prepare for school so they can confidently begin the year wearing new uniforms with backpacks for their books and supplies.
Aiding a Struggling Single Mother and Her Children
Among the line of people waiting to receive school supplies from Tzu Chi in Candlestick RV Park on August 24 was Claudia Avila, a single mom who brought her 8-year-old son to the distribution. However, Avila and her family don’t live in this community; they live in an RV on the street in a deserted industrial area where other RVs are also parked. Avila’s RV does not have a hook-up to water or electricity, making living conditions harsh. To make matters worse, for a woman with three young children, there are elevated security risks associated with proximity to the residents of this makeshift assembly of run-down vehicles.
Claudia Avila and her three children live in an RV without water or electricity that is parked on a deserted street. Photo/Lulu Yin
Before the distribution, the volunteers had arranged a home visit through a school one of Avila’s three children attends: Her eldest child, a 15-year-old daughter, is in high school, the second, a 13-year-old daughter is in middle school, and her 8-year-old son is in elementary school. During the visit, the volunteer team learned that Avila had come to San Francisco from Honduras four months ago. A friend helped this family of undocumented immigrants by allowing them to live in the RV at no cost. Squeezing onto a tiny bed in the RV, the family of four looked up at the low, oppressive roof of the vehicle as they tried to imagine the American dream they hoped to attain in the future.
Financially, Avila can barely make ends meet even by working three part-time jobs, which are unavailable daily. She has no choice about where to live, and her life is a desperate struggle. With no electricity or water in the RV, the family has to walk 30 minutes to the nearest public bathroom to shower and use the toilet, taking more than an hour to go back and forth each time. Nevertheless, this is the only option the RV residents on this street have, and one Avila’s family had to accept in exchange for shelter.
I was very worried about the safety of my daughters living on the street in the RV. The people coming and going here are very complicated, but I had no choice.
Tzu Chi volunteers bring warmth and care to Claudia Avila and her three children, a disadvantaged Hispanic family living in an RV since recently moving to San Francisco. Photo/Lulu Yin
Marginalized families living on the fringes of cosmopolitan cities like San Francisco have long been neglected and forgotten by society. Thankfully, Tzu Chi volunteers learned of their plight and now help them with their needs. As they provide regular and continuous assistance and care, they are lighting up hope and delivering welcoming warmth to combat the windy cold associated with this foggy city, transforming feelings of abandonment into ones of gratitude.
A School Counselor Expresses Her Thanks on Behalf of the Families
While providing care for underprivileged families, Tzu Chi San Francisco Branch volunteers have collaborated with Bret Harte Elementary School in the Hunters Point School District for many years. With the help of Narda Harrigan, a counselor at the school, they can learn about the needs of students living in Candlestick RV Park, as well as obtain real-time information about new families who have moved into the area and applied for assistance so they can go and care for them.
School counselor Harrigan shares that thanks to the collaboration with Tzu Chi, Bret Harte Elementary School can help provide concrete aid to families residing in RVs, assistance that continually meets their needs. “Tzu Chi has been helping these families for many years with food, cash cards, and gifts for the children. And these families are really in need,” she said. “I am so happy to work with Tzu Chi to provide services to families living in RVS in our neighborhood.”
The disadvantaged families living in RVs are very appreciative and ask the volunteers to continue. We’re very grateful to the volunteers, and we love Tzu Chi; we really appreciate the help.
