Xenia is a homegrown Santa Cruzan who truly values making a tangible difference working within her community. 

She’s a UC Santa Barbara alumnus with a degree in Sociology and an emphasis on law. Later, while working with incarcerated youth, she became aware of the cyclical connection between injustice, discrimination, and homelessness.

She understands the frustrations of clients dealing low wages, high living costs, aging, and limited housing.  Xenia finds it inspiring however, that the AFC can truly work as a community partner, not only providing needed services, but fostering supportive relationships between individuals.  She appreciates this very humanizing approach. 

Xenia’s not afraid to go above and beyond to help her clients, including taking a day trip to San Francisco. Being frustrated with the bureaucracy of obtaining a birth certificate needed to receive a housing voucher, she and her 80-year old client hopped aboard public transportation, and headed straight to City Hall. This out-of-the-box support meant a great deal to her client, in addition to offering a fun adventure for the pair.

Xenia says that she feels lucky to learn so much from her clients, and appreciates hearing about their life stories and the wisdom they bring. She says her role as case manager is less about “giving back” to her community, and more about being a helpful advocate for change. Xenia says that professionally, she is exactly where she is supposed to be right now. And for the AFC, it is truly our privilege to have her. 
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Written by Nicole Donovan

Jeanne’s journey to housing was, by her own telling, full of little miracles. One sunny day last spring, she and three other shelter members decided to take day a trip to the Land of Medicine Buddha to spin the prayer wheels and offer prayers for housing for themselves and others in the shelter. Six months later, their prayers were answered. All four of them secured housing. 

Jeanne knows the answer to those prayers came in part through her own perseverance as well as the kindness and generosity of others. After being housed, hardworking, and relatively comfortable for most of her life, a series of unexpected, and, in her words, catastrophic life changes left her with nothing, including housing. “It’s like I suddenly fell [through the floor and] into a dank, dark basement. I was looking around, saying ‘How did I get here?’ Then you make a decision. You either live or you die.”

That determination to survive brought her from the frigid midwestern city she was living in, back to the more temperate climate of California, where she’d previously lived. Her journey eventually led her to AFC’s Faith Community Shelter, where she began to encounter what she’d describe as the first in a series of small miracles – the warmth of community and the chance to interact with individuals from diverse backgrounds. 

“Gifts came in many ways and on many levels,” she recalls. Sometimes those gifts were physical gifts, like a gift card around the holidays. Other times they were a word of comfort, a prayer or listening ear. The most impactful thing, she shared, was that each of those gifts “let us know that others had us in their minds.” “For some,” she went on, “I think I reminded them of their older relatives, and compassion was their response.” 

Those interactions also sustained her spiritually. As a self-described “spiritual seeker”, she considered it a grace to interact with volunteers from diverse spiritual traditions. She could see her thinking evolving as those interactions fostered tolerance and empathy. Anyone who had the privilege of sharing a spiritual conversation got a taste of her own insights, shaped by reflection and experience, and often shared in a quote from a sacred text or spiritual teacher. 

Jeanne sees another miracle in how she found housing. After a lengthy wait, she was referred to H-DAP, a program that would subsidize her rent and help her attain a Section 8 voucher to secure permanent housing. Xenia, her AFC Case Manager, lined up a showing for her in a neighborhood she knew she liked and felt comfortable in. The week before the showing, she decided to take a walk through the neighborhood to confirm her sense of safety and to keep an eye out for other rentals. The day of the showing came, and, while she had high hopes, the unit had an entry way that would be unsafe for her to navigate, eliminating it as a viable option, and leaving them both disappointed. 

As she and Xenia left the property, they saw a “For Rent” sign in the distance, and said “Let’s go!” After calling the number, the listing agent came within 30 minutes to let them view the unit. Jeanne knew it would work well for her, and immediately put in an application. She was skeptical she’d be approved, as she knew the Santa Cruz rental market was competitive. To her surprise, she was offered the apartment within 48 hours! From there, H-DAP staff lined up the funding to make sure she could move in to her new home. 

With housing secured, she counts the move in support she received, particularly from volunteers within AFC’s faith community, as another small miracle. Many of those volunteers had been cheering her on for some time, and once housed, were eager to help her feel settled. A volunteer and her son from Peace United gave her a table, even carrying it up the steps and into her unit. A volunteer from Resurrection Catholic Church donated her own rocking chair. Volunteers from Trinity Presbyterian gave her dining chairs and a house plant, which, as Jeanne notes, is currently thriving. 

Beyond those who donated, she also counts the emotional support she received along the way as a miracle. She felt a special bond with the cooks from UMC Santa Cruz, who had been encouraging her for years. After she was housed, she remembers running into Pastor Jeremiah Fair from Community Covenant Church. He was delighted to hear she was housed, and shared that his congregation had been praying for her for months. With her permission, he shared the good news with the church so they could celebrate.

This series of miracles has left Jeanne with a deep sense of gratitude. She reflected that she could have become bitter after losing so much, but her experience and reflection made her see things differently. “A life’s journey is not all about the outside of things – the security and financial success,” she shared. “Ultimately, it’s about how you think. I think through associating with so many different kinds of people, you become a much more compassionate and wiser person. Life is about what kind of human being you choose to be.”

*To protect her privacy, Jeanne’ real name likeness was not used for this story.