Unhoused people in Richmond have a new place to go for food, showers, services

In a gritty lot on South Second Street under Interstate 580, O’Neill Fernandez stepped out of the trailer that is Safe Organized Spaces’ (SOS) Richmond headquarters. He surveys the area known as the SOS Yard — a nonprofit respite for unhoused people that opened in March.

Here, on Mondays and Fridays, homeless people can get free coffee, food, and a hot shower at the Warm Hand, a recurring pop-up wellness and resource center. Narcan nasal sprays are available in case of narcotic overdoses, and clients can find information on social and health services. All a person needs to do is show up. A handful did on this day in May, about nine.

Fernandez, a care manager and the Director of Wellness and Programs at SOS, spends much of his day sending emails, scheduling appointments, and doing administrative work on behalf of clients who don’t have basic access to services. SOS, he said, focuses on engagement to learn what homeless people need.

Last year, Richmond enacted a Homelessness Strategic Plan, drafted by the nonprofit Homebase, after declaring the problem a public-health emergency. With a 15-month, $1.56 million city contract that began in April, SOS is key to this strategic plan. Among its activities, the group pays unsheltered folks to clean encampments, deliver mobile showers and provide laundry services. 

Officially, Contra Costa County Health’s “point-in-time” count on a single day in January found the city of Richmond had 388 people experiencing homelessness. SOS conducted its own count a month earlier over a two-week period, and estimates that about 1,700 individuals live unhoused within city limits and adjacent unincorporated areas. Daniel Barth, SOS Richmond’s executive director, deems the county’s count methodology to be flawed.

“You miss people you can’t see,” Barth told Richmondside. “We have the experience to know where to look for hidden encampments far from the streets.” 

Talk to the unhoused people and the handful of workers who tend to them and themes emerge to explain why they live outside: housing costs, mental illness, physical disabilities, and drug addiction — commonly used as a way to cope with childhood trauma. The trauma of living on the streets can compound problems for this population. Abuse, rape, assault and even murder, are not uncommon crimes against or among people experiencing homelessness. Debilitating self-blame abounds. 

SOS workers visit Richmond’s homeless encampments in person to publicize their services. They say Richmond has nearly 200 such locations.

“It’s painstaking work to reach the homeless in this city,” Fernandez said.

From being homeless to helping homeless people

Fernandez, 44, would know. He lived in an encampment known as “the Castro” near North Castro street after a series of life tragedies, he said. (The city eliminated that encampment using a $4.8 million state grant. According to a report from Lina Velasco, Richmond’s director of Community Development, and Jesus Morales, the city’s Housing Manager, 70 of the 102 former Castro residents now have some form of housing. California has spent $24 billion to end homelessness over the past five years.)

Fernandez said his wife died of a stroke at age 30, and he was raising their two boys alone. Then he lost his dream job, lead cultivator of a legal marijuana grow house in Sacramento, after a run-in with police and a spiral into methamphetamine addiction. Three months later, he was homeless. But times changed, and so did his luck.

Since the end of the pandemic, he’s been clean, employed, and off the streets, he said, crediting the SOS Richmond team and Barth with his midlife turnaround. It was a difficult process, said Fernandez, because substandard and overcrowded housing in certain social programs was an issue. 

Barth, 60, displays unbridled passion for his SOS work. He and Fernandez handle much of the daily outreach to encourage Richmond’s homeless people to seek a more stable life.

“Daniel pulled me out of a tent and got me a job on the SOS trash team,” said Fernandez. “One-hundred percent of our field staff are from the unhoused community.”

From there, Fernandez joined the outreach team. It was a good match for his friendly, warm demeanor and sincere desire to help others. He knows from hard experience the internal and external barriers the unhoused face to get help, if they want it. 

“We have the lived experience, the understanding, other organizations don’t have,” said Fernandez. “We may be seen as uneducated, without degrees, but we are providing care.”

A shanty constructed of chain link and tarp

At an encampment on the Richmond Greenway Trail behind Target on Macdonald Avenue, Barth chats with 39-year-old Jaime Rodriguez. Barth wants to give Rodriguez a job on SOS’s trash team — a critical first step in the nonprofit’s 90 Day Job Readiness Program. Rodriguez wants the job, as his girlfriend is expecting their child, but there are barriers.

Rodriguez was born in Guatemala in 1985. When he was 12, Rodriguez said he crossed the Sonora-Arizona border with his young brother on his shoulders and eventually made his way to the Bay Area. He became a mechanic. But addictions put an end to his steady income. He’s been living in a shanty constructed of chain link and tarp for the past eight months. Inside, a gust from a speeding BART train only a few yards beyond the plywood door sends dust settling on Rodriguez’s few belongings.  

“People burned two of my (previous) places,” Rodriguez said. “It’s crazy out here. But living like this becomes normal. You get used to it.”

Barth, wearing a ball cap embroidered with “You’re Not Alone,” urges Rodriguez to reconsider attending an outpatient detox program. 

“I’ve been talking to Jaime for eight months, trying to get him help,” Barth said. “It’s up to him now.” 

Kim Moore, Rodriguez’s neighbor, agrees to accompany Barth to the SOS Yard for a hot shower. 

Moore is having problems obtaining documents to get her life together. Her state ID was sent to a shelter in San Francisco. But she had already been forced to leave the shelter after her son, who is bipolar and schizophrenic, turned 18. Her ID was returned to the state after she didn’t pick it up. 

“It’s impossible to keep yourself ordered outdoors,” Barth said. 

Back at the SOS Yard, Moore, 58, prepares to take her first shower in about a week. She also seeks information on permanent housing for herself and her son.

SOS is all about giving the unhoused second, third, and fourth chances, said Fernandez. And it’s not just about giving a person a job. It’s about building soft skills like communication. 

“Stability is not just a house,” said Fernandez. “Kim coming here is an accomplishment. It’s about respect, building a friendship first. What’s the little thing I can do to start that relationship? That’s what we do at SOS.”