December 15, 2025

Meet Robin

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A bike accident put her hard-won stability at risk. Season of Sharing Fund helped pay her rent

Robin Cayabo heard the crack of her leg breaking as soon as she landed on the pavement.

It was late July, and Cayabo, a 46-year-old Mountain View resident, was bike riding with friends through San Jose during a monthly group trek they called the San Jose Bike Party.

Cayabo figured it would be a low-key way to enjoy a late summer evening with friends. Instead, in the middle of the ride, she and another cyclist collided, sending Cayabo flying off her bike. She found herself lying on the pavement, unable to move. When her friends drove her to the emergency room, she learned she had broken the part of her tibia where it connected to her knee.

The injury would require major surgery and prevent Cayabo, who was a barber in San Mateo, from working until November.

“I didn’t have enough money for rent,” she said. “I was like, oh my God, what am I going to do?”

It felt like a potentially devastating setback. Cayabo had spent three years living in homeless shelters after leaving an abusive ex. She’d worked hard to get certified as a barber and got a second job while searching for an apartment she could afford for herself and her 17-year-old son.

Now, she was unable to work, and even though she’d applied for disability insurance, any assistance she received wouldn’t come in time to make rent.

“I didn’t have enough money for rent.”

In September, after receiving an overdue rent notice, she spoke to Jose Hernandez, a housing service coordinator at her apartment complex, San Antonio Place, which is run by Charities Housing. The complex receives services from Catholic Charities of Santa Clara County.

Hernandez shared her story with the Season of Sharing Fund, which works year-round to prevent homelessness and hunger in the nine-county Bay Area. All of the fund’s donations go directly to help people in need.

Cayabo applied for assistance and got three months worth of rent money from the fund — enough to cover her costs until disability payments kicked in and give her financial support to finish her physical therapy and return to work.

“Everything is gonna be OK,” she recalled thinking. It was, “Relief, like OK, it’s gonna be paid for … and then I could go back to work.”

Catholic Charities of Santa Clara County CEO Don Taylor said the support Cayabo and others receive through Catholic Charities and Charities Housing was a “powerful expression of what it means to serve our community,” with programs that promote economic stability, educational growth, mental well-being, food security and access to vital resources that help restore community and self-worth.

“Thanks to the partnership between Catholic Charities and Charities Housing and Season of Sharing,” Taylor said, “our client received critical rental assistance that allowed her to remain safely housed — a lifeline that gave her stability, peace of mind, and the opportunity to move forward without the fear of losing her home.”

The assistance Cayabo received took care of her immediate predicament and allowed her to focus on rehabbing her leg.

It was a boring and lonely recovery, she said.

“It was hard,” she said. “I’m used to getting up and getting ready and going out for my day.” She rarely left the house, save for doctor appointments.

She used Amazon for groceries. Stuck at home, she watched all six seasons of “The Handmaid’s Tale.”

A friend ran errands and helped take care of her, but for most of the time she was alone. Her son stayed with his grandparents in the Central Valley.

Though it’s been several months since the accident, its impacts still linger.

“Everything is gonna be OK,” she recalled.

For one thing, after weeks of not being able to walk, her legs had atrophied.

“There’s no muscle,” she said.

Cayabo had to relearn to walk and is doing physical therapy. It’s starting to feel better now, but even so, she still catches herself and her leg feels different.

“When I was a little kid, I’d ride a bike and I would fall, I wouldn’t break anything,” she said. “It gave me like a wake up call like, ‘You’re getting older, like you need to start being careful what you’re doing.’”

Reach St. John “Sinjin” Barned-Smith: st.john.smith@sfchronicle.com

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