Who is Elizabeth?

San Francisco, CA

Elizabeth is a journalist, teacher, and founder of an educational nonprofit organization. She has been experiencing homelessness since 2019.

Miracle Money Goals 2021

1. Make ends meet by catching up on necessities such as clothes, shoes, and copies of lost documents

2. Pay down debts

3. Start saving and building emergency savings

4. Start building credit and improving credit score

5. Buy a bicycle to get healthy and increase transportation options

More about Elizabeth

After a cancer diagnosis, Elizabeth was unable to work, leading to the loss of her income and housing.

In March 2020, she was moved to a shelter-in-place hotel in Pacifica, and began participating in the Miracle Friends program. In addition to her weekly conversations with her Miracle Friends volunteer, Elizabeth shares her unique talents with the organization, helping with volunteer training curriculum and advocating (on behalf of people experiencing homelessness) through speaking engagements with community members and the media. 

Elizabeth’s Miracle Money Experience

When Elizabeth learned she would become a Miracle Money recipient, she was overjoyed, but even more determined to continue to help destigmatize the perception of unhoused people: She accomplishes this, in part, by sharing her story, an “evolution in thought from being unhoused.” She adds, “This is not a homelessness crisis, but a crisis in society about how we view unhoused people.”

Elizabeth is currently living in temporary housing in San Francisco, CA. She hopes to own a house again, but as a black woman and a cancer patient, she says it will be “darn near impossible,” for that to happen with the current lack of change in housing policy and support for unhoused people. “They give us meaningless forms to fill out… The issues are not the terms we use for unhoused people, but why the US does this to people instead of trying to rehouse them or keep them in the community.”

Elizabeth is also excited to stay involved in her projects and plans with Miracle Messages, and to participate in a TED Talk soon!