Woman Overcame Homelessness and Addiction, ‘You Mean Something to Someone’

AUDIO – PATIENCE AND COMPASSION –

Sept. 12, 2024 – “My parents, my sister, my kids — they didn’t want anything to do with me,” she remembered. As her family withdrew, Hernandez-Coleman’s life unraveled. At 59, she found herself unhoused and losing hope.

“I was just begging God just let me die out here … Then, one day, while in San Francisco, out of booze and shaking from withdrawal, she saw the city’s red crisis van. A member of the street overdose response team, Britt Rubin, leaned out the window, waving her tattoo-covered arms at Hernandez-Coleman.

“She was looking really unwell,” Rubin said. “In crisis, more or less.”

They took Hernandez-Coleman to a sobering center, where she spent a few days detoxing. A flier on the wall caught her eye, advertising a 90-day rehab program called Friendship House.

“It was a big change for me,” she said. “It’s a rehab primarily for Native Americans. But they accepted me. It was very spiritual. Changed my life.”