A beacon for community

“It’s hard because I get so many calls every single day from people in need of housing,” she said, adding that though it’s in her DNA to try to help, her organization hasn’t had any more housing to offer in recent years. “So that felt good, it felt like maybe we’re not solving the problem but we have 15 families moving in.”

Although her nonprofit delivers several other much-needed resources — among them food and clothing, a place where families can do laundry and a school backpack drive — to mitigate the high cost of living for the many low-income families who live nearby, Heltsley describes the housing crunch they are experiencing in that portion of North Fair Oaks as “beyond crisis.”

She said the St. Leo’s Apartments brings the total number of affordable housing units the nonprofit manages to 82, most of which are centered around the intersection of Nottingham and Marlborough avenues just east of El Camino Real, in an effort to protect families from being forced to move east to cities like Tracy or to cities south of San Jose to make ends meet. With contributions from foundations and private donors, the nonprofit has been able to finance the project as well as others such as a recent purchase of 25 below-market units on Bradford Street in downtown Redwood City to buoy the area’s stock of affordable housing.

Without the assurance that their homes are exempt from rent hikes, Heltsley said families currently living there are prone to developers purchasing their buildings, renovating them and renting them out at rates they cannot afford. A purchase by a developer of a 48-unit apartment building across the street from the nonprofit’s offices at 151 Buckingham Ave. last year represents the threat to neighborhoods like North Fair Oaks, said Heltsley. She said she would need some time to mourn what happened to the 48 families who received eviction notices before engaging the new neighbors, who are equipped to pay over $2,000 a month in rent for studios and one-bedroom apartments there.

Heltsley added that many of the adults living in the area are working in housekeeping, landscaping and construction, among others, jobs that aren’t enough to support them in the face of rising rents but are also too good to give up even when they move east or south to make rent payments.

“They can’t afford to stay here, but this is where the work is,” she said.

Wide array of services

But for the families that have been able to stay in North Fair Oaks, the St. Francis Center offers a wide array of services in an unincorporated portion of San Mateo County somewhat isolated from city services and other commercial areas. Heltsley said the center got its start in 1986 when the late Sister Monica Asman fulfilled a dream to work directly with economically challenged families, beginning a food and clothing donation program in a small house at Buckingham and Marlborough avenues where gangs had been known to disrupt educational and career opportunities for the neighborhood’s youth. Heltsley followed a similar path years later, joining the organization 17 years ago in the hopes of spending more time directly helping families facing financial hardship after years of working in education administration.

With a mission of meeting the needs of the community surrounding it, the center has expanded under Heltsley’s leadership, providing a small school focused on English language instruction for both students and parents, after-school programs and two community gardens, among others.

Youth programs

The nonprofit responded to feedback from parents asking for a place where their children could go after school in a big way, creating the Siena Youth Center programs in 2012. With activities held at a building dedicated to the youth programs at 2625 Marlborough Ave. from 2:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Friday, the Siena Youth Center keeps kids in the neighborhood out of trouble and focused on their schoolwork and future careers, said Rafael Avendano, the center’s director of programs.

Avendano has been focused on youth development programs since he joined the center staff in 2012, using his background in organizational leadership and management to help youth develop skills necessary to go to college or pursue careers after high school. Now 30 years old, he still remembers how instrumental a South San Francisco Boys and Girls Club was in helping get him off a troubled path when he was a teenager.

Avendano said stabbings and other gang-related activity plagued the neighborhood’s youth with a lack of youth-focused programs before the center opened.

“People don’t really know what this is, it’s in the back of Target, nobody ever goes here,” he said, adding that reports of crime in the area have dropped considerably since youth have had a place to go after school and during the summer.

Empowering residents

As Heltsley works to find a place for the neighborhood’s families to live more permanently, her hope lies within the nonprofit’s efforts to empower residents to advocate for themselves. Although the nonprofit’s English language instruction programs are increasing the literary rate for the neighborhood’s adult population, which Heltsley said averages a third-grade level for women, its staff is working to advise residents on public speaking and to learn about public forums where they can express their concerns.

“We are working very hard on advocacy … so the neighborhood can speak its own truth,” she said. “That’s another path we’re on.”

anna@smdailyjournal.com

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