Teresa Robinson doesn’t like to think about the time she was homeless.
But nearly 20 years ago, Robinson lived in a shelter for women and children in Richmond with her 8-year-old son and teenage daughter, with nowhere else to go.
She had a job, working in maintenance for the city of El Cerrito, but with rising rents, she struggled to find an affordable place to live.
“My son would say we weren’t homeless, we just didn’t have a key,” Robinson said. “We weren’t eating out of a trash can. I had a job. It was just a phase in life that God had to take me through.”
My son would say we weren’t homeless, we just didn’t have a key,” Robinson said. “We weren’t eating out of a trash can. I had a job. It was just a phase in life that God had to take me through.
With the help of the church she’s attended for 24 years, Robinson applied for affordable units until she found one: a three-bedroom apartment in Richmond, the same city where she was born and raised.
Robinson, now 66, has lived in that same apartment for 19 years. She still feels grateful to her beloved church family at Victorious Living Ministries who helped her find it.
“It gave me and my two (children) a sense of stability all over again,” Robinson said.
But the pandemic dealt her another wave of uncertainty with job losses and the death of her mother and stepfather.
Robinson retired from El Cerrito in 2007 when she stepped off a van and injured her hips — resulting in a bilateral hip surgery. She mostly relied on her disability checks until she started getting paid by the state to care for her mother and stepfather.
But in 2019, her stepfather died at the age of 85 and a year later, her mother died at the age of 90.
Losing “both of them was heartbreaking,” Robinson said, adding that on top of family losses, she lost her income, too.
In the midst of a pandemic, Robinson searched for other caregiving jobs, but was unable to find one. Though she receives some disability from the state and about $600 a month from her retirement, Robinson said she didn’t have enough to cover her $1,495 rent, utilities, car insurance, food and other necessities.
She soon fell behind on her rent and owed the landlords thousands of dollars.
“I was looking for help from everywhere,” Robinson said.
That’s when The Chronicle’s Season of Sharing Fund stepped in and gave Robinson enough to repay most of her back rent.
The fund works year-round to prevent homelessness and hunger in the nine-county Bay Area. All donations go directly to help people in need, with administrative costs covered by The Chronicle and the Evelyn and Walter Haas Jr. Fund.
It’s a good success story…. She was able to get back to her work when they started letting caregivers back into their homes.
“She was impacted pretty badly by the pandemic,” said Claude Battaglia, her case worker. “She did get some COVID relief, but it wasn’t enough so we had to step in and help her get caught up. It’s a good success story…. She was able to get back to her work when they started letting caregivers back into their homes.”
Robinson said she is grateful she didn’t have to leave her home — a place where she often cares for her 17-year-old autistic grandson and helps him with his homework while her daughter works. She said her grandson feels like her home belongs to him, too. At one point as she fell further into debt, Robinson said she considered leaving the state.
But the extra help from Season of Sharing took some pressure off Robinson as she continued to search for a job. This summer, she started working with Manos, a social services organization, which paid her to provide childcare for her grandson.
That income allowed her to repay the rent she owed in full.
Although her situation felt uncertain for a time, Robinson said her faith in God never wavered.
Her home is her private space, where she’s raised four children and often has her 13 grandchildren come over. A place where she can lie her head down on her own pillow in her own bed and be comfortable, she said.
While she often chats with two of her neighbors at the mailboxes, she typically likes to keep to herself — often going to the movies alone.
“You get home and you…” Robinson pauses before sighing deeply. “It’s just your safe haven.”
“I just thank God that we didn’t have to leave,” she added.
Sarah Ravani is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: sravani@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @SarRavani