Tonya Allen

Operations manager for Hamilton Families homeless shelter in San Francisco

A bright and messy mural runs across the wall of the offices at the Hamilton Families homeless shelter on Golden Gate Avenue. Children painted it, unsteady brushstrokes and all; an image of the street outside.

Now most of it is hidden behind brown cardboard boxes and black trash bags full of masks, hand sanitizer and cleaning supplies. These are Tonya Allen’s pandemic stockpiles. When the pandemic first hit San Francisco and raced through city shelters, Allen did everything she could. She put up hand-washing stations, offered masks to the guests, closed common areas. She also bought supplies and food for her employees — she knew they’d be working long hours and might not get off in time to grab toilet paper or eggs. She packed little snack bags, too.

“Essential is essential,” she says. “We can’t close, because if we close, our families go back out on the street.”

During the first four months of the pandemic, the shelter had only one case of the coronavirus — an employee who worked at multiple spaces had tested positive.

Allen was at the tail end of treatment for cancer, but she wasn’t worried. She wasn’t mad. She was sidelined and frustrated. So she worked from home.

“I’m one of those people that feels whatever needs to be done, let’s get it done,” Allen says. “If I have to come in at 6 o’clock in the morning to help with breakfast, if I have to stay till 8 o’clock at night to help with dinner, that’s what I do. I dunno, it’s not a job. I worked a job for 20 years, this is what I’m called to do.”

None of this is just talk. On a recent afternoon, she was managing produce for the kitchen, checking in on a socially distanced clothing exchange, sorting bills and working to install a better internet connection for school-age children. She also found time to check on every empty room to make sure the beds didn’t wobble, the lights worked and the walls had a fresh coat of paint.

And then there was her stockpile. Allen pointed out the boxes of gloves and masks and hand sanitizer. “We’re just getting started,” she says. “It’s good to know now, but when this hit, there were no parameters in place for something like this.”

For a while the shelter was flush with donations, money, clothes and cleaning products. A welcome boost, a sign they were “doing the work we’ve always done and now people are recognizing it,” Allen says. That has faded quickly. “I’ve dealt with social injustice my whole life. If we flipped a coin with those who are unsheltered … I could potentially be on the streets.”