It’s time to find room at the inn for all of us

Juana is 50 and an immigrant from Mexico. She has four adult children and a 12-year-old and has lived in Half Moon Bay for many years. On this night, her exhaustion is a visible thing, a weight that leans on her shoulders and curls her lips into a frown. Nearby, her daughter and granddaughter entertain themselves so that she can tell her story to the white man from the newspaper.

Carolina is 28 and a force. Mother of a 7-year-old girl, she came to this country — “invaded” as she put it playfully — four years ago. She describes herself as a refugee, seeking political asylum from El Salvador, where she was driven out by gangs and ultimately separated from her husband.

While these two women are very different, they share several commonalities: their language, the obvious love for their children, their hard work for people who barely register their existence, and their own American dream to have a place of their own.

Juana and her kids have shuttled from place to place and currently share space with her daughter, son and his three kids, as well as another family. She says it takes both of her monthly checks, which total $2,800,  to afford her single room. And these are relatively good times.

“There was a time when I had to live in my car with my kids,” she says in Spanish through an interpreter.

Once upon a time, when her kids were younger and more innocent, they asked why they couldn’t have their own place like the other kids they see on the coast. She tried to explain it to them. “Latin people have always had to struggle and work hard,” she said. 

Carolina is a member of the Ayudando Latinos a Soñar Housing Committee. As such, she has joined the voices beseeching the Half Moon Bay City Council to find affordable housing for people who are desperate for it. She clicks the links to impersonal Zoom meetings and delivers impassioned pleas before silent elected officials.

“Sooner or later, they will be tired of it and say, ‘Just give them houses,’” she said in her native Spanish. “I have faith.”

Is a City Council that has been talking about affordable housing for years, if not decades, hearing the pleas of people like Juana and Carolina? She is hopeful but, when pressed, also a bit discouraged.

“It’s sad for us to hear the city say we need a dog park when we need homes for our children,” Carolina said.

The ALAS Housing Committee has one demonstrable coup: The city has designated the property at 555 Kelly Avenue for a building that organizers hope will one day house aging agricultural workers. Carolina estimates there are 5,000 Latinos struggling for housing in the area. The 40 units planned for the land across from Cunha Intermediate School is a start.

“But really our community isn’t just agricultural workers,” she said. “We are essential workers, like me. We work in the markets, in the hotels. We clean people’s houses. We fix people’s gardens. We take care of your kids and your elderly. And we’re people who work for this town.”

Carolina is adamant that she and others aren’t looking for a handout. They don’t want more than they have coming. “We work for this community, so we think that it’s only fair that we have a home — not with any luxury — but a place where we can raise our children,” she said.

The ALAS Housing Committee has also organized marches beginning at 6 p.m. on the fourth Friday of every month. Housing advocates meet at Kitty Fernandez Park on Main Street and march the few blocks north to Mac Dutra Plaza, where people like Juana and Carolina share their stories and plead for a solution. “There,” Juana said, “we see each other’s tears.”

The housing struggle experienced by Carolina and Juana and thousands like them should be especially moving this time of year — if we make time for reflection amid the conspicuous consumption that has consumed Christmas in America.

Many Coastside Latinos, including, it’s fair to assume, some struggling to pay the rent, will be making the procession for Las Posadas. It’s one of countless traditions that immigrants from Mexico and Central America have shared to enrich the culture of the coast. On Sunday, Dec. 18, these Christians will reenact the biblical story of Mary and Joseph making their way from Nazareth to Bethlehem as they search for a room for the night. Locals will play the biblical characters and knock on doors as they make their way through town, turned away again and again, before ultimately finding someone who will take them in.

We ought to invite them in. All of them, and not just for Christmas. Juana and Carolina and countless others like them — including struggling people born and raised in this country — shouldn’t have to beg for the right to pay what they can afford for basic accommodations. We needn’t find a way solely for their enrichment, but for ours. So that we may be a true community that honors hard work, treats people fairly and lives the compassion conveyed in the true Christmas story.

— Clay Lambert