They were homeless
These Bay Area politicians bring a new perspective to the housing crisis:
When Ajwang Rading reels off the qualifications he says make him the right candidate to represent Silicon Valley in Congress, he includes a personal history nearly unheard of in politics: A decade of off-and-on homelessness.
Rading, a 29-year-old lawyer from the Peninsula, has never held an elective office. But he does know what it’s like to grow up sleeping in a car, washing in a public restroom and finishing homework at fast-food restaurants because there’s nowhere else to go. And he says that experience, which allows him to see eyeto-eye with those living at the margins of the Bay Area, makes him particularly well-suited to take on longtime incumbent Anna Eshoo in the race for California’s 18th Congressional district next fall.
“I have a very different vantage point of this district,” he said. “That actually is a value add to the seat.”
Rading joins a small cadre of California politicians who are overcoming the social stigma and shame around homelessness, and casting their experiences living on the street, in cars, in motels and on acquaintances’ couches as a strength and asset in a region locked in a pitched debate over how best to address a growing crisis of unhoused residents. At least two City Council members in Oakland and one in Los Angeles have struggled with homelessness and now are drawing on that experience in their fights to improve access to housing and social services. An activist who is currently homeless is running for Oakland mayor in 2022 and another plans to throw his hat in the ring for Marin County supervisor.
As the issue dominates the minds of voters, politicians who have struggled with housing insecurity are gradually opening up about their experiences. Some, including Rading, said even their friends and colleagues didn’t know about their past hardships until they made them public while running for office.
Experts say their stories may resonate well with a Bay Area electorate desperately seeking new solutions — 89% of area voters view homelessness as an extremely or very serious problem, according to a recent Bay Area News Group and Joint Venture Silicon Valley poll.
“One complaint that people have about politicians about a whole range of issues is they just don’t get it,” said Jack Pitney, a political science professor at Claremont McKenna College. “Talking about the experience of homelessness boils down to three words: I get it.”
But it’s often immensely difficult for unknown candidates without political experience, connections or deep pockets to get elected. A gripping story about homelessness will only get them so far, said political strategist Dan Schnur, who teaches at UC Berkeley and Pepperdine University.
“A candidate’s personal biography can encourage voters to pay more attention to their campaign than they otherwise would,” he said, “but it’s a door-opener, not a deal-closer.”
Rading is a rare example of someone born into homelessness. When his mother — a single mom from Kenya — gave birth, she couldn’t even afford the car seat she needed to take Rading home from the hospital. A friend who had one eventually picked up the new mother and her baby and dropped them off at a Los Angeles homeless shelter.
Rading’s mother soon got back on her feet, at times working multiple jobs. But she lost her job in mortgage banking leading up to the 2008 financial crisis, about the time Rading was in middle school, and they became homeless once again. They mostly slept in a 2001 Dodge Neon — Rading in the passenger seat, his mother in the driver’s seat.
As a young mother, Oakland City Council President Pro Tem Sheng Thao also lived in a car with her newborn.
Thao, a daughter of Hmong refugee parents from Laos, was a victim of domestic violence. When her abuser pulled her to the floor by her hair and kicked her, Thao, then 20 years old and pregnant, fled.
She had nowhere to go and didn’t make enough working at Walgreens to afford a security deposit and first and last month’s rent on an apartment. So she and her newborn baby couchsurfed and slept in her car in Contra Costa County. Eventually, she made some friends at Merritt College who let her crash on their futon until she could save up for a place of her own.
“Being housing insecure and food insecure, it’s a feeling like no other. You’re in this constant survival mode,” Thao said. “And I think that’s the reason why I do the work that I do.”
Jason Sarris’ life fell apart after a divorce when he began partying excessively and making destructive decisions that cost him his job and his home. Now 17 months sober, Sarris lives in an encampment in Novato’s Lee Gerner Park.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, he fought the city’s attempts to clear the park and displace his camp. He even took the issue to court and won a major victory this month — the city agreed to create a temporary sanctioned encampment in the park.
But Sarris wanted to do more. So he decided he’s going to run for Marin County supervisor.
“It’s a humbling experience to be on the street,” Sarris said. “But it gives me a broader view of what needs to be done in Marin. And I think any city council or county supervisor board needs somebody in my situation. Somebody that’s seen it from all sides.”
Derrick Soo has filed a notice of intent to run for Oakland mayor next year in what’s sure to be a crowded race filled with many names more recognizable than his, including current City Councilman Loren Taylor. Soo, who has been homeless off and on since 2012 and served on Alameda County’s Health Care for the Homeless advisory board, lives in an encampment near the Coliseum and advocates for his unhoused neighbors.
Oakland City Councilwoman Carroll Fife bounced from hotel to hotel for about six months in her 20s after her landlord decided to sell her duplex. As a single mother of three with an old eviction on her record, no credit history and little savings, she struggled to find a new home. When she did, she complained to her new landlord about the lack of heat and was evicted again.
That experience solidified Fife’s belief that housing is a human right — a rallying cry that carried her to the City Council last year. It also inspired a mailer Fife said her opponents put out that highlighted the evictions and a child support case on her court record.
When Fife saw it, she refused to feel ashamed.
“I was proud,” she said. “I was like, ‘I’ve had experiences that a lot of workingclass women have. And that just bonds me to people.’ ”
Like Fife, Rading said he’s running for office to lift up the Bay Area’s most vulnerable residents. He wants to get the federal government more involved in creating affordable and homeless housing, including potentially handing vacant properties over to community land trusts.
But Rading has a tough task ahead of him, attempting to unseat a rival who has been in office almost as long as he has been alive.
“This is a pretty difficult race for someone running for their first time,” political strategist Schnur said.
But for Rading, who still has back pain and swollen ankles from years of sleeping in a car, fighting a longshot political battle is nothing compared to what he’s already endured.
“It’s quite defining,” Rading said of his homelessness. “But I don’t mean to say that as a liability. It’s made me incredibly aspirational.”