SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — They know chronic back pain from couch surfing while pregnant. They tuck their children in at bedtime in the backs of cars and under bridges. Once their kids are asleep, and only then, do they let themselves cry.
Since January, a group of eight San Francisco mothers have met regularly as part of a local nonprofit’s pilot program to share their stories and learn to advocate for the needs of families like theirs experiencing homelessness.
“I feel like I failed my kids,” says Teniah Tercero, breaking into tears as she talked about how she hates exposing her three young daughters to the open drug use of the city’s gritty Tenderloin neighborhood where they sleep at a shelter.
The room falls quiet. Christiana Porter, a fellow mom, gently pats Tercero’s shoulder as someone else passes over a box of tissues.
“I know the feeling,” adds Danica Gutierrez, also a mother of three girls.
Gutierrez, 29, was skeptical about relaying some of the hardest moments of her life with people who were strangers.