Homelessness: A year-round problem in Fresno County

I’m currently collaborating on a story about homeless youth in Fresno County. As part of my research, I interviewed last week three homeless women who are living at the Fresno Rescue Mission Shelter in downtown Fresno.

Anissa Gutierrez, a mother of three, told me she lost her apartment days before Christmas. There were no available rooms at the shelter at that time, so she and her kids bounced through the homes of various friends and family members. Always, she said, she tried “not to wear out my welcome at anybody’s house.”

Christmas came during that period when Gutierrez and her children were homeless.

“I’m not going to lie, I made the kids stay up real late the day before so they would sleep most of the day on Christmas, so they wouldn’t even notice it was Christmas,” Gutierrez said.

“I felt so bad for them on Christmas,” she said. “They don’t know – but it made me feel awful.”

Gutierrez’s story hit me hard. But as Laura Tanner-McBrien, of Fresno Unified School District’s Department of Prevention and Intervention told me, it’s important to put that story in context: That was just one of the many days of that Gutierrez, her children, and thousands of others are homeless.

“Homelessness is a year-round thing,” said Tanner-McBrien, who manages the school district’s homeless outreach programs.

“The one thing that always surprises me is that it’s only focused upon during the holidays. We forget that come January and February, those families are still homeless and in need of services, and the children still need things.”

Fresno’s homeless count in January 2009 was 3,591, according to the Fresno Bee. Fresno Unified estimates there are about 2,400 homeless students in the school district.

Photo  by Marcus Vega.