A Family's Odyssey: The Minivan Becomes Home in Long Quest for Housing

"Either it was hotels or it was food," Angelica Rodriguez said. "Our decision was to stop staying at hotels because we weren't having enough food. That was the main thing, the kids being fed."

Angelica, 32, stood next to her gold Honda minivan. She and her partner, Miguel Mata, 36, have two boys, Brian, 9, and Martin, 11. Along with Ace, the family dog, they all lived in the van for more than a year after the family lost their housing in Daly City, her home since she was a child.

"We would try to keep the kids distracted. We would go to the park, we would go to the mall and just around bedtime we would grab something to eat, walk around with the dog and try to go to sleep," Angelica recalled. "Martin would sleep in the middle and Brian would sleep in the back. Miguel and I would sleep in the front."

They shuttled the van with its scratches and dings between South San Francisco's Orange Park, Daly City's Gellert Park and other places where they felt relatively safe. The van is an Odyssey, something of a metaphor.

The family struggled to keep the boys in school, buy ice to chill Angelica's insulin, feed the family, find free Wi-Fi so the boys could keep up with homework, do laundry, search for housing, pay bills and draw as little attention as possible.

"I'd ask my kids, 'Are you guys good?' They would say 'Yeah,'" Angelica said. "I think they said that just to make me feel better."

After two years without a permanent home, the family in February 2025 moved into a two-bedroom, two-bath apartment in San Mateo thanks to their determination and the public agencies and nonprofits that extended a safety net to catch them.

Their travails - housed to homeless to housed - shine a light on the nearly invisible San Mateo County families scraping by on the rough edges of poverty until some calamity or a combination of troubles casts them adrift.

Angelica grew up on Clarinada Avenue in Daly City's St. Francis neighborhood, an area between Skyline Boulevard and Interstate 280 built primarily in the 1950s and known for its large homes. As a kid she walked to school: Daniel Webster Elementary, Fernando Rivera Middle and Westmoor High (Go Rams!).

She was 18 when she met Miguel. She liked his fun personality and endearing smile. Miguel was new to the area so together they ventured to Pacifica's pier and beaches, hung out at Tanforan shopping center and shared sandwiches from South City's Little Lucca.

As time passed she started working at a local clothing retailer while he found work in a restaurant. First came Martin and then Brian as the family settled into Angelica's childhood home with her mother and stepfather.

The daily routine involved school and homework for the kids (Daniel Webster and Fernando Rivera, just like mom), work and family time for the adults. Angelica and Miguel dreamed of getting their own place: a two-bedroom apartment with room for the growing boys.

They thought about moving across the Bay or to the Central Valley. But home was Daly City.

That held true when Angelica and Miguel decided it was best for everyone if they moved out after a fallout with Angelica's mother and stepfather in early 2023. They spent a few nights in a hotel, figuring it would not take long to find a place close to home.

But they faced impossible math in one of the tightest housing markets in the United States.

"They would tell us," Angelica recalled, "'You guys don't make enough money.'"

Myths abound about individuals and families experiencing homelessness in the Bay Area.

Perhaps the most pervasive myth is that people come here from out of state for the weather and cheap drugs and free services. Most of them are mentally ill or choose to live on the street. They don't want to work.

Then there is the hard reality.

The vast majority of people experiencing homeless in California are Californians: Nine out of 10 people surveyed in a comprehensive study of who is homeless in the Golden State lost their stable housing in California.

Three-quarters were living in the same county where they lost their stable housing, according to the study by the Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative at the University of California, San Francisco.

"Something goes wrong, and then everything else falls apart," said Benioff Initiative Director Dr. Margot Kushel, the study's lead researcher.

"Families are falling into homelessness because housing costs have risen far faster than wages - and there's no safety net to catch them," Kushel said. "The evidence is clear: most people who experience homelessness are long-time members of their communities who can no longer afford a place to live.

"Without real investments in deeply affordable housing and support for the lowest-income households, we will keep seeing families pushed into homelessness - through no fault of their own."

In 2023, renters in San Mateo County needed to earn $61.44 per hour - roughly 3.7 times the City of Daly City's minimum wage - to afford the average monthly asking rent of $3,195, according to a report by the California Housing Partnership.

Miguel had steady work as a cook in a taqueria. But his salary was far short of making that kind of rent and paying living expenses for a family of four.

Angelica had worked until her health failed her.

She was diagnosed with gestational diabetes while pregnant with Martin. A thyroid disease causes inflammation in her neck, leaving her voice hoarse and thin. To manage her health, she takes several medications across a day and is unsteady on her feet.

"Sometimes I feel depressed, but I can't show it. I think of my kids," she said. "I try not to cry but my emotions are just really, really high."

Unable to afford continuing hotel bills and determined to maintain the boys' school routine, they moved into the van.

"It's not what I wanted," Angelica said, "but where else was I going to turn?"

They had reluctantly joined the ranks of what's known as the vehicular homeless - people who live in RVs, vans or cars. About 800 people were living in vehicles in San Mateo County during the last count. Many so-called mobile homeless lost their homes after being unable to afford rent or their mortgage, and had to move into their most valuable possession, according to a UCLA study.

"There are so many families like Angelica's in San Mateo County, trying to get by and raise kids while sleeping in vehicles and working long shifts at low-paying jobs," said Claire Cunningham, director of the Human Services Agency. "We depend on them to work in our restaurants, stores and at myriad other jobs, but the decades of insufficient investment in affordable housing have made it a Sisyphean task for them to remain housed."

Living in San Mateo County is so expensive that the federal government considers a family of four making as much as $156,650 per year low income.

For Angelica and the family, life in the Odyssey proved a daily struggle.

"I would have a cooler for my insulin, because it has to be cold. With the ice we could buy sandwiches, lunch meat, things like that. But we were mainly buying out," Angelica said.

"We weren't saving anything because we were constantly eating out. And for us four it was $50 to $60 per meal. It's not cheap. It's just so expensive, and that's what was really getting to me because we were constantly eating fast food. It was very expensive, and it was very expensive in terms of my health."

When the family fell short of money, Miguel would take a payroll advance. "Then he would pay it back, and we would be back to square one living paycheck to paycheck. It's just so crazy," Angelica said.

They developed a routine: weeknights at Gellert Park, closer to the boys' schools; weekends generally at Orange Park, closer to Miguel's work.

One time a police officer told them an adult needed to stay with the van at all times or they risked being ticketed or towed. So they took turns going to the restroom or playing soccer with the boys or taking Ace for a walk.

They would occasionally stay at a hotel for a quiet night in a bed or park the van at local beaches, like Francis Beach in Half Moon Bay, for variety and to lower their profile in their usual spots. Miguel or Angelica would whip up a meal of carne asada to mark the special occasion.

Living so exposed comes fraught with risks. After a man angrily rapped on the van windows while Miguel was at work, they adopted Ace, a brown Doberman mix who has become Angelica's ultimate emotional support animal.

"People ask why I would want a dog. 'A dog would make everything harder,' they said. I wanted that extra protection just in case," she said. "You never know. Any kind of person could come by when Miguel was not around."

They made do in a home of about 25 to 30 square feet.

Cold, foggy nights meant extra blankets to brace against the chill. Warm evenings were an invitation for Brian, a boisterous fourth grader who likes to draw, and Martin, a sixth grader who loves swimming and soccer, to play outdoors.

"The holidays were pretty hard. We got them just like an outfit each last year. They each got a shirt and some pants. They understood. What we did was we got a hotel room so they didn't have to sleep in the car. I cooked them their favorite food, chicken alfredo. That's what I made them."

What they tried, above all, was to look like any other family with two kids doing their homework each night and keeping their grades up.

Her greatest fear? "We didn't ever want to get pulled over and have the police see the kids sleeping in the van and take the kids away. I was really scared all the time."

With options narrowing and Angelica's health deteriorating, they steered the van to the YMCA Community Resource Center in South San Francisco, one of the County's eight Core Service Agencies. Angelica's case worker at the Daly City Health Center, a clinic operated by San Mateo County Health, suggested they could find assistance there without judgement.

Core Service Agencies operate under a contract with the County of San Mateo. They provide safety-net services to San Mateo County residents in need of food, emergency housing assistance, emergency utility assistance, shelter and other basic needs.

A voucher allowed them to spend a week in a hotel.

They had to verify they were homeless before qualifying for certain services, a process designed to weed out slackers and cheaters. But how do you prove you don't have something, like an address?

To answer that, they had to rely on friends and relatives to lay out their circumstances in a series of letters.

"They have been living in a van all five of them bunched in a vehicle with their clothes and no space to sleep, moving from different parking lots, parks, beaches and streets to sleep," a relative of Angelica's wrote in a "To whom this may concern" letter. The family needs "some faith to know that better days will be coming."

Another relative in another letter worried about "the mental trauma this is doing to them."

Their lives changed when they were approved to move into First Step for Families, a transitional shelter for up to 39 households operated by LifeMoves. The nonprofit provides services for homeless and low-income families across the Peninsula.

The family's second-story apartment came with a refrigerator, stove, private bathroom, one bedroom for the boys and another for Angelica and Miguel. A table for homework. Luxuries for a family that spent a grueling year in the Odyssey.

The boys were able to stay enrolled at their Daly City schools.

They qualified for $200 a month in assistance from CalFresh, the state's version of the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Staples like rice, pasta and beans as well as fresh fruits and vegetables made available to First Step clients helped the family stretch their food budget and eat healthier meals.

Having a home base allowed the family to enjoy what most take for granted.

On Oct. 31, 2024 - Halloween - Angelica fixed breakfast as Brian slid into a dragon costume and Martin put on a glowing stick-man outfit. Angelica beamed at the kids, capturing photos on her phone. The pain of so many months adrift bubbled up.

"I had an SD card with all my memories," she said, tears starting to fall, "and it got lost in the transition."

Through a referral from County Health's San Mateo Medical Center, Angelica was able to see a specialist at Stanford Health Care to treat her thyroid condition.

The family spent about six months at First Step as their case manager worked with the County's Housing Authority to secure a voucher based on their low family income and Angelica's disability. After numerous ups and downs, Abode, a non-profit that works in partnership with the County, helped them locate permanent housing.

Angelica cried when she learned the family had been approved.

Their journey ended shortly after noon on a cloudy Tuesday when the family received the keys and moved into a two-bedroom, two-bath apartment in San Mateo, a block from a park and a few blocks from a dog park for Ace. The rent is $1,132 a month thanks to a voucher program that pays the balance of the fair-market rent through a federal program administered by the County's Housing Authority.

As Sarah Fields of LifeMoves put it: "Often, when an individual or family becomes unhoused several systems have failed. To successfully chart a path towards stability, our case managers and other supportive staff must build trust with our clients, assisting in systems working where they may not have in the past."

"This takes time and dedication," Fields said. "Angelica's story is unique, but shows an example of the choices made under difficult circumstances and the dedication necessary to move through towards housing."

A week after the family moved in, their apartment looks much like any other with a newly arrived family of four. Abode arranged for donations to fill out the home with furniture and dishes.

Angelica can now focus on improving her health without the constant stress of looking for housing. The boys will transfer to San Mateo schools, a small price to pay for life-changing housing.

She has one lesson to share: "We were really afraid to tell anyone we were sleeping in the van because we felt like we were going to be judged: You live in a car. Why are you here?'

"We're human beings. Everyone goes through things. Don't judge people on their looks, like their physical looks or anything. You don't know what's going on."