With helping hand, Bay Area family puts RV life in rear-view
With helping hand, Bay Area family puts RV life in rear-view
After nine months living in an RV that had to be moved every three nights, Andrea Johnson thought she’d lost her two children behind one of the many doors in their new two-bedroom apartment.
Johnson was doing dishes when the place went silent so she mounted a search and found them in the last place she expected — already tucked into their slots in their new bunk beds, Jose, 12, on the bottom, Amber, 8, on top.
“It was the first time they ever put themselves to bed on their own,” said Johnson, 43, during an interview on her only day off from work, a Wednesday.
The bunk-bed set, with mattresses, built-in drawers and twin dressers, came courtesy of the Chronicle Season of Sharing Fund.
The Sunnyvale apartment complex where Johnson had grown up with a single, working mom, and where she was raising her own kids as a single, working mom, was sold.
Eight years on a month-to-month lease became a 60-day notice to vacate.
The favorable rent she was able to cover while working as an in-home care provider could not be found anywhere else.
“I’m used to doing everything on my own,” said Johnson, who has a diploma from Homestead High School in Cupertino, Steve Jobs’ alma mater, and national certification as a medical assistant.
Truth is, she didn’t mind life in the RV, getting up at 5 a.m. to boil water to get the kids washed before getting them off for school.
“The kids never missed a day of school and I never missed a day of work,” she said.
It was crazy trying to move cars and move kids, finding places to do your laundry and homework and juggling doctors appointments.
[...] looking for a place to live at the same time and everybody telling you ‘no’ because they only want the techies to move into their building.
There were only two aspects to it Johnson couldn’t work around.
The other is the parking restrictions in Sunnyvale.
Stay anywhere more than three nights and she’d be towed.
Stay anywhere for two nights and she’d be ticketed.
Because the organization is located just outside a residential community, she could stay more than three nights without attracting police attention.
Johnson was trying to stay discreet but was unknowingly on the radar of Stephano Joseph, a case manager for Sunnyvale Community Services.
When Joseph knocked on the RV door, Johnson “didn’t know what a case manager was,” she said.
Here I am, a stubborn independent female who is used to doing everything on her own.
“The living room is bigger than the RV,” Johnson said, pointing from her front door to the vehicle in its own designated parking spot.
By next year, she expects to be able to cover the entire rent.
[...] she never could cover the furnishings.
“I worked my butt off to get this stuff,” she said.
[...] she never could find free beds, so the three of them slept on blow-up mattresses until the day Joseph caught wind of this arrangement.
Sunnyvale Community Services has a three-way arrangement with the Chronicle Season of Sharing Fund and a furniture store in Silicon Valley.
The bedroom set, which has a double mattress on the bottom for Jose and a single on top for Amber, is the only brand new furniture in the apartment.
“We’re finally home, Mom,” Jose said when Johnson found her kids tucked in on their own that first night.
[...] he slept through the night for the first time since their eviction.
Sam Whiting is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer.
Email: swhiting@sfchronicle.com Instagram: @sfchronicle_art
Donations to the Chronicle Season of Sharing Fund help thousands of people in the Bay Area throughout the year.
Assistance is in the form of grants paid directly to the supplier of services, such as a landlord.
Individuals do not receive direct grants.
For more information, visit www.seasonofsharing.org
Where the money goes
Distribution of funds
Critical family needs / housing assistance and food banks
Contra Costa
Generally, 85 percent of the total funds are distributed for critical family needs and housing assistance, and the remaining 15percent is allocated to food banks for emergency food services.
Four percent of grants for critical family needs and housing assistance is paid to fiscal sponsors for fee management; fees are covered by The San Francisco Chronicle and the Evelyn & Walter Haas Jr.
Fund.
* Food bank total includes a one-time grant of $14,099 to Santa Cruz County in 1989.