By Xenia Shih Bion, California Health Care Foundation, November 2, 2020
For the past 15 years, Bay Area resident Sonja Summerville Trotter has cycled in and out of homelessness. As with so many others, there wasn’t one single event or cause that led to her living on the streets. Her life has been complicated by post-traumatic stress disorder from painful experiences that included surviving a rape, and she has been in and out of addiction treatment and jail.
In March, Summerville Trotter left a treatment program with nowhere to stay again just as the COVID-19 pandemic was accelerating. Then an employee from the treatment program called to offer her a hotel room as part of Project Roomkey, California’s effort to quickly house people at highest risk of COVID-19 complications who are also experiencing homelessness.
Summerville Trotter finally had housing — at least temporarily. After a month at a Radisson Hotel, things got even better. Alameda County officials offered Summerville Trotter her own studio apartment, with a seventh floor view, in the heart of downtown Oakland.
Comments (0)