At a San Francisco Shelter for Unhoused Families, Cooking Helps Heal Trauma | KQED

“That level of insecurity in their home lives makes it really difficult for them to concentrate on whatever amazing instruction the teachers have in store for them once they get here every day,” Moran said.

As principal of a community school, Moran said her job is to make sure that students’ basic needs are met so they can learn better. That means partnering with local food, health care and housing organizations and turning the campus into a hub for easy access to services its immigrant and low-income student population needs.

Giving kids a safe place to sleep and a predictable routine can help lessen their anxiety. The shelter also focuses on the parents’ mental health by connecting them to social services and job training programs to help them get back on their feet.

To boost their morale, parents at the shelter are able to cook a meal together twice a month.

Cooking gives the parents agency and helps lift their self-esteem, said the shelter’s manager, Jacqui Portillo.

“They feel relaxed, they feel connected, they’re accomplished, they did something,” Portillo said.

“The parent has to be okay in order to support their kids,” she said. “And this little moment is helping them to really be more engaged with the kids.”

On a recent visit, several shelter residents volunteered to make red pozole – a spicy and hearty Mexican soup. Reporters Daisy Nguyen and Carlos Cabrera-Lomeli spoke with two moms at the shelter, who explained what cooking does for them.

Maria Figueroa

Figueroa migrated from Tijuana, Mexico, in July 2023 with her 18-year-old daughter and 10-year-old son. She said it was too dangerous to raise her children in Mexico and is seeking political asylum in the U.S. When she arrived in San Francisco, she enrolled her kids in school and went back to school herself to train to be an in-home caregiver for sick and elderly people.

Figueroa said her kids often ask when they will get to taste her cooking again.

“I tell them, ‘God willing, when we have our own little place’ because, to be honest, we just can’t cook like that here [all the time] … only when an opportunity like this comes up,” she said.

She decided to make her signature dish – pozole – because it reminds her of home.

When we met, Figueroa had been staying at the shelter for nine months and said she saw the place as home and the shelter residents, her neighbors.

“Regardless of how you see the situation, we’re all here for the same thing. We all need a home, we need a place to sleep, a place to eat while we figure out our situation and here, we all see each other and what we’re going through,” she said.

Analy Padilla

Analy Padilla is from Honduras and has been living in this country for 21 years. She also came to this shelter nine months ago after her husband lost his job, and they couldn’t afford the rising cost of rent in San Francisco.

She said she, her husband and their two sons spent several nights sleeping in their car. They called everywhere for an open shelter space.

“And when they told me there was a spot for my family to stay here, I cried,” Padilla said. “I was so happy. I was finally going to have a home to be with my family.”

Padilla said it’s not easy sharing the bathroom, eating and sleeping spaces with strangers or packing up her stuff each morning. The experience hit her 15-year-old son Kevin hard, she said. At school, his grades dropped, he skipped classes, and he became withdrawn.