Raymond Fiuren is an optimist. He makes friends easily, and their photos cover the walls of his cozy apartment. He loves his job as an aide at a San Rafael elementary school so much that, when talking about it, his eyes well with emotion. He cheerily ticks off a litany of surgeries and medical issues that have left him disabled and in pain but haven’t broken his spirit.
But the Army veteran’s natural optimism dwindled last summer when he feared that the housing stability he had finally achieved was about to be upended. Due to a bureaucratic glitch, his veterans’ assistance housing voucher was delayed, causing Fiuren to miss a rent payment on his San Rafael apartment and start worrying about eviction.
“There were times when I thought, ‘God, what do I do?’” Fiuren said. “But I just tried to stay calm.”
Fiuren, 61, needed the voucher to help him bridge the summer months, when he isn’t paid for his work as a school aide. After several years of precarious living situations, including a period of homelessness, he had finally found an apartment in fall 2023, just a short bus ride from his job at Coleman School.
It was a landing spot after many years of movement. A native of San Francisco, Fiuren joined the Army when he was 18. He spent almost a decade as a cook, stationed both stateside and in South Korea and Germany. His service was up just before the first Gulf War, and he returned to San Francisco, cooking mostly in tourist restaurants in Fisherman’s Wharf, before following a friend to Massachusetts for similar work.
The years of 14-hour days on his feet and heavy lifting took their toll when he picked up a full coffee urn and his back went out. He required a 12-hour surgery to repair three disks. A few years after that a hemorrhage caused bleeding in his spinal column.
After all those health problems, Fiuren decided it was time to return to San Francisco, where he still had family. He moved back in with his grandmother in the Sunset District and, through a connection with an old friend whose children went to Coleman, got a job at the school.
“The principal at the time asked me how much I could do, and I said I could do anything,” Fiuren said. “I help with yard duty, pickup and drop-off, reading with special needs kids.
“When I’m there, it’s like I’m not disabled, like I’m not in pain. It’s a blessing. It’s a joy.”
Fiuren said he believes he connects with some of the more challenged students because of his own background.
“Growing up, I was those kids,” he said. “My mom had me at 15. We lived with my gram. I had to wear braces on my legs. School was hard. I ended up in a school for kids that didn’t fit into the system.”
After his grandmother had a stroke and was moved to a nursing home, relatives sold the family home and Fiuren relocated to the North Bay. He continued to work at Coleman while bouncing from one living situation to another and also dealing with ongoing medical complications: two knee replacements, three surgeries on one arm, vertebrae surgery, a mild stroke and a heart procedure.
One of the biggest challenges was not health-related. Last summer, his help from Swords to Plowshares, the nonprofit providing assistance to veterans, had run out and Fiuren was supposed to get a voucher from HUD-VASH (Housing and Urban Development’s Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing Program), but it wasn’t coming through.
His VA caseworker, Karri Vierra, helped him apply to the Chronicle Season of Sharing Fund, which works year-round to fight homelessness and hunger in the Bay Area’s nine counties. Season of Sharing provided Fiuren with two months’ rent, helping him get through the uncertain weeks before his housing voucher came through and he went back to work.
“It was a bridge, and that’s what I pray for, for veterans or families or anyone that’s on the street,” Fiuren said. “A program like that is vital. It’s so appreciated.”
“So many people are grateful for help. They don’t expect it, but when it does come you realize there are angels that come to your assistance.”
Fiuren has to have another surgery, for three bulging disks. He’s had to take days off because of his pain. But he’s always eager to get back to school, where the kids call him “Mr. Ray” and he does whatever is needed to help out.
He knows how important a helping hand can be.
Reach Ann Killion: akillion@sfchronicle.com; X: @annkillion
At Season of Sharing Fund, we believe that an unexpected financial crisis should never mean losing your home. Preventing homelessness isn’t just kind—it’s also the most effective way to keep our communities thriving. 100% of your donation keeps Bay Area residents housed, cared for and nourished.
