Miguel Carrera

In a large room outfitted like a classroom, a group of women in their mid-30s sat around a rectangular table chitchatting in Spanish as they organized papers. Another 40 or so Spanish speakers were scattered around the room, looking like they were gathered for a parent-teacher conference.

If so, Miguel Carrera would have to be the teacher.

The group was there not just for their children. They were there to work on improving their family lives.

Carrera meets with the group, Families and Immigrants, midday Tuesdays at the office of Coalition on Homelessness to discuss plans on improving living conditions for homeless families. Currently, the group is focusing on the environment in single-room occupancy hotels across San Francisco.

Although barely 5 foot 4 inches tall and slightly hunched, Carrera nonetheless speaks with charisma. He organized this group how many years ago based in part on his own years of homelessness and his desire to help others. Now, he’s pushing a San Francisco ordinance that would increase subsidies for low-income housing in the city.

In the meeting, Carrera addressed the group that the bill has passed the first stage. The city council had voted for it and later today, they will vote on it again. If they pass the bill again, it’ll go to Mayor Newsome for the last approval stage.

“There are so few politicians and so many of us,” Carrera said in Spanish to the group.
The group sat quietly and listened to Carrera.

“This is too quiet,” Carrera said. “We won!”

Carrera himself was no stranger to poor quality of living. Born and raised in Mexico, a country with a huge problem with poverty, Carrera grew up in a family that count they’re blessing with what they had. But it was that environment that gave Carrera the desire to fight for poverty. However, it was also that fighting spirit that had him banned from Mexico.

Carrera would not go into details, but one of his demonstrations for change had angered some political figures in Mexico. In 1989, he fled his homeland to San Francisco.

“When I was still in Mexico, people would talked about the Golden Gate Bridge,” Carrera said. “I would read about it in books and see the picture of the bridge. That to me was America. That’s why I chose San Francisco as the place to go.”

Carrera first arrived into the Mission District because it was a place of familiarity due to the large Hispanic population. Within a few days, he met a man who was generous enough to help him get on his feet. That man offered Carrera a place to stay and also got him a job.

Even though Carrera had a college education in Mexico, it did not help him in America. Like many immigrants, his first job was in the restaurant washing dishes.

Then things turned south for Carrera. When he found another place with new housemates, he got involved in drugs. For years, he was hooked on cocaine and various other substances. His drug use eventually turned him to the streets.

For over a year, Carrera was homeless. He turned to drug usage and dealing as his way of living. It wasn’t until he met another homeless man name Jesus Perez in a shelter that turned things around for him.

“I owe everything to Perez,” Carerra said. “If it wasn’t for him, I don’t know if I would’ve got clean.”

Perez told Carerra that he knew a place that helped homeless people with various problems and issues. That place, as it turned out, was the Coalition on Homelessness. Through the coalition, Carerra checked into rehab.

Like every recovering drug addict, road to soberness is not an easy task. It took Carrera three different clinic to heal him. He checked into two different clinics, and ran away from both. Carrera told the coalition that both places were uncomfortable for him, and too far away from home. The coalition checked Carrera into the third and final clinic, Height Ashbury Clinic.

Once Carrera was clean, he got back in doing what he loves to do, fight for human rights. He then became full-time staff working with Coalition on Homelessness. Then Carerra began working on forming different organizations within the coalition to fight for housing rights. Three times he formed groups, and three times the groups couldn’t maintain their purpose.

The group Families and Immigrant was the forth group that Carrera formed and led. This group was able to stay on track due to avid members attending every Tuesday.

“What really made the difference are the women in the group,” Carrera said. “It was their time and effort that keep this place afloat.”

His co-worker, Matthias Mornino, then took over rest of the meeting in going over to what the group would focus on next when the bill does get pass. Mornino has works with the SRO Collaborative, an organization that focus on moving families out of Single Room Occupancy hotels. Since a lot of the members in Families and Immigrants live in SRO, this combine the two organization to fight for a common goal. Both Mornino and Carerra also reach out to various other organizations and collaborate with them on various events and demonstration.

“Our goals is to end families living in SRO,” Mornino said.

It was through one of these events that Carerra met his wife. He is a father of two children.

When asked about his all the time he spent working with the coalition, and whether he felt that he should move on toward something else, he only had one response.

“If I can’t work here, I would go crazy.”