Carmen Marquez lost most of her fingers and part of her leg after contracting meningitis in a San Francisco shelter stay
A Venezuelan immigrant who claimed she contracted meningitis at a San Francisco homeless shelter — an infection which led to the amputation of nearly all of her fingers and part of her leg — says she is still without city-provided housing more than a month after being discharged from a six-month hospital stay in which she underwent multiple surgeries.
“The illness took away the movement from my body,” Marquez said, through a translator. “It damaged my limbs, my hands, my feet. My left foot burned from underneath. I developed two holes in my buttocks.” Advocates say Marquez’ situation is emblematic of an overlooked group within The City’s unhoused population: immigrant families, aware of San Francisco’s status as a sanctuary city, who’ve made the journey from South America. They say many of these families have found themselves caught within the complexities of The City’s housing- and shelter-assignment systems, with even more potentially uncounted in San Francisco’s federally mandated biennial count of its homeless population.
“San Francisco doesn't have a comprehensive plan to support newcomer migrant families at all, and they're letting the homeless emergency response system be the catch-all system, and it is not resourced on its own to be this catch-all system,” said Hope Kamer, a spokesperson for Compass Family Services, a local family-housing nonprofit.
Other San Francisco metrics report staggeringly different numbers. A San Francisco Unified School District report published last year, for instance, recorded more than 2,400 district students lacking “a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence,” during the 2021-2022 school year. Longtime neighborhood advocate embraces ‘adapting to the change’ of SF After nearly 40 years in the Pacific Heights Residents Association, Lynne Newhouse Segal sees plenty of work left to do
Blas said she and her family immigrated from Peru, where she suffered a severe injury to her heel and ankle while crossing the border and is still struggling with chronic pain and swelling despite surgery. Blas, Marquez and others who stayed at the Buena Vista Horace Mann shelter formed a group through Faith in Action Bay Area, which launched a campaign earlier in 2024 to pressure city officials to make family homelessness a priority.
San Francisco Homelessness Homelessness Department Of Homelessness And Supportive Housing Hsh San Francisco Faith In Action Carmen Marquez
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