Disabled mother seeks housing assistance in San Francisco – Bay Area NBC
A Venezuelan mother whose limbs were amputated after contracting meningitis protested in front of the Department of Housing on Tuesday to seek help and find permanent housing for her and her teenage daughter in San Francisco.
Carmen Márquez confirmed that she contracted the disease while staying at a shelter in the city, and as a result part of her leg and all of her fingers were amputated. She left the hospital on September 9 and has been homeless ever since.
“I’m asking the city, the mayor, to give me a chance to have decent housing, because I don’t have a home and I’m still homeless and I have a 15-year-old teenage daughter,” Carmen said.
The mother of the family explained that she knows she won’t be able to work again, so she did her part and applied for the permanent housing offered by the city weeks ago, but assured that the experience was impersonal.
“Because look at my disability, mayor, a computer doesn’t do everything, and a computer wasn’t going to go to the hospital where I was because they did it to me, it was because of an online call, the statistics and a summary to see if I qualified and I they said I qualified with 40%, and that doesn’t tell me it’s up to 70%, 80%, 120% that qualify, but look at my handicap, a computer is not going to see my handicap,” said Carmen.
That’s why dozens of residents and activists joined her in front of the Department of Homelessness and Housing to show that the city’s current housing distribution system is stacked against them, and Carmen is an example of that inequality.
“But in the surveys we did there are 746 empty houses and Carmen only needs one to be able to live, which depends on her disability,” said Brenda Cordova, a spokeswoman for San Francisco’s Fe en Acción.
Telemundo 48 contacted the San Francisco Department of Homelessness and Housing on three separate occasions to find out if these vacant unit numbers are real and, if so, why the system continues to deny units to families like Carmen’s without, however, until at the moment they have not answered our questions.
Carmen and her daughter are currently staying in a room that was offered to them for a few days, but they say the space does not allow Carmen to continue her treatments, so they need a solution soon.
They are asking the community for help to take action and follow through this link Complete a petition to the City of San Francisco supporting Carmen’s cause
“I need you to listen to me, to listen to my voice and not just my voice, but the voice of all those immigrants who come after me so that they don’t suffer the same as me,” Carmen said.