Community
Project Started in San Francisco East Bay Community By Homelees Youth
In the Alameda
Times-Star, Tilde Herrera reports that a San Francisco East Bay
woman, who traveled to California from New York in 1991 at 11 years
old with her drug addicted mother, has started a crusade to help
local community groups come together in an effort to bring social
services to the neighborhoods that need them most.
The young
woman, Venus Rodriguez, now 22, spent her childhood between
homeless shelters
and foster homes as her mother battled drug addiction and ran from
an abusive husband, didn't stop her from being appointed to
the
Youth Commission by San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown and travelling
to the White House to represent homeless children.
Venus hopes to bring services
like drug rehabilitation, counseling, peer support and like
social
services to the community, where it is needed, rather than uprooting
the affected and while asking them to cope with a difficult
situation,
also asking them to relocate and re-establish their lives, as happened
with her as a child.
Rodriguez represents a new era
in community led social services, and when asked
by Tilde Herrera of the Alameda Times-Star about a future political
career, she responded: "I still like organizing for now, but
(eventually), I want to be in a position where I can help the community
but be involved in the policy side of it."
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