At a San Francisco Shelter for Unhoused Families, Cooking Helps Heal Trauma

Buena Vista Horace Mann is a Spanish immersion school for students from kindergarten to 8th grade in San Francisco’s bustling Mission District. But by night, it transforms into something completely unique in the city: a homeless shelter for families with children enrolled in the school district.

The shelter provides a hot meal, a shower and a place to sleep in the gym or auditorium. It was formed six years ago by some of the parents of the school who, during a particularly rainy winter, asked if they could sleep in the hallway or an empty classroom.

“They were staying in cars. They were staying in laundromats. They were riding the bus or BART back and forth every night just to pass the time in a place that felt relatively safe,” Principal Claudia DeLarios Moran said. “And here we had a building that wasn’t in use out of school time.”

The school partnered with the city’s Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing to care for these families. The city pays for their housing, and the nonprofit Mission Action runs the shelter.

The number of families experiencing homelessness or on the verge of homelessness has grown in San Francisco since then, and in recent months, the shelter has had to turn away families at the door when it fills up. Advocates and educators like Moran worry this is traumatizing for kids in desperate need of stability. Studies show housing insecurity early in life affects children’s health down the line and their chances of finishing high school.

“That level of insecurity in their home lives makes it really difficult for them to concentrate on whatever amazing instruction the teachers have in store for them once they get here every day,” Moran said.

As principal of a community school, Moran said her job is to make sure that students’ basic needs are met so they can learn better. That means partnering with local food, health care and housing organizations and turning the campus into a hub for easy access to services its immigrant and low-income student population needs.

Giving kids a safe place to sleep and a predictable routine can help lessen their anxiety. The shelter also focuses on the parents’ mental health by connecting them to social services and job training programs to help them get back on their feet.

To boost their morale, parents at the shelter are able to cook a meal together twice a month.

Cooking gives the parents agency and helps lift their self-esteem, said the shelter’s manager, Jacqui Portillo.

“They feel relaxed, they feel connected, they’re accomplished, they did something,” Portillo said.

“The parent has to be okay in order to support their kids,” she said. “And this little moment is helping them to really be more engaged with the kids.”

On a recent visit, several shelter residents volunteered to make red pozole – a spicy and hearty Mexican soup. Reporters Daisy Nguyen and Carlos Cabrera-Lomeli spoke with two moms at the shelter, who explained what cooking does for them.

Maria Figueroa

Figueroa migrated from Tijuana, Mexico, in July 2023 with her 18-year-old daughter and 10-year-old son. She said it was too dangerous to raise her children in Mexico and is seeking political asylum in the U.S. When she arrived in San Francisco, she enrolled her kids in school and went back to school herself to train to be an in-home caregiver for sick and elderly people.

Figueroa said her kids often ask when they will get to taste her cooking again.

“I tell them, ‘God willing, when we have our own little place’ because, to be honest, we just can’t cook like that here [all the time] … only when an opportunity like this comes up,” she said.

She decided to make her signature dish – pozole – because it reminds her of home.

When we met, Figueroa had been staying at the shelter for nine months and said she saw the place as home and the shelter residents, her neighbors.

“Regardless of how you see the situation, we’re all here for the same thing. We all need a home, we need a place to sleep, a place to eat while we figure out our situation and here, we all see each other and what we’re going through,” she said.

Analy Padilla

Analy Padilla is from Honduras and has been living in this country for 21 years. She also came to this shelter nine months ago after her husband lost his job, and they couldn’t afford the rising cost of rent in San Francisco.

She said she, her husband and their two sons spent several nights sleeping in their car. They called everywhere for an open shelter space.

“And when they told me there was a spot for my family to stay here, I cried,” Padilla said. “I was so happy. I was finally going to have a home to be with my family.”

Padilla said it’s not easy sharing the bathroom, eating and sleeping spaces with strangers or packing up her stuff each morning. The experience hit her 15-year-old son Kevin hard, she said. At school, his grades dropped, he skipped classes, and he became withdrawn.

Padilla said she urged him to see the bright side of their situation.

“I told him: ‘This is only temporary. We will soon get out of here. Then you will have your own space and your life will go back to normal. But give thanks to God that we have a mattress, a blanket and that you’re not outside in the cold. Many people have to spend their nights outside.’”

Padilla said as the last school year progressed, he became more comfortable at the shelter and played with other kids there. She said he also joined a support group at his high school to talk through his experience.

“He ended up liking it because, on the last day of the group, he told me, ‘Mom, the group is going to end, and we need to bring something to share.’ And I saw him so excited,” Padilla said.

She said she also tries to make the best of the situation, and getting to cook together helps her feel like she’s part of a big family.

She said that every two weeks, the cooks rotate duties: some decide what to make while others help with the prepping and cleaning.

“We make a good team,” she said. “If someone doesn’t know how to do something, someone else will know how to do it. But we all add our own seasoning there in the kitchen.”