Immigrant Dreams: The Robeas Find Home and Belonging in the SoMa
Question: When does a tiny studio apartment for a family of three become a home? Answer: When the people in it feel embraced by a community and become committed to its strength.
Mrs. Zenaida Robea, immigrant wife and mother, experienced this process. On a bright San Francisco afternoon, Mrs. Robea is serving an elaborate Pilipino feast she has just prepared for SOMCAN staff members in her minuscule kitchen. She says: “It was very difficult to find a place. Juvy [Barbonio] helped us find a place and gain some financial security. She also helped us get involved in SOMCAN and in the SOMA community. She helped us jumpstart our life here in the United States.”
Juvy Barbonio, social worker and Coordinator of SOMCAN’s United Families/Familias Unidas Program, is vital to the multi-pronged mission of SOMCAN. United Families helps low-income families find housing and avoid isolation; connects them to concrete government services, but also to the warmth of a supportive, active community. Connecting to the SOMA community, newly-housed immigrants themselves become active advocates for it.
Mrs. Robea says: “Juvy calls me from time to time, and I try to go to SOMCAN events whenever I can. We help anyway we can. We love the family SOMCAN has shown us and all of the activities they put on. SOMCAN opened up the gateways for us.”
Her husband, Mr. Eduardo Robea, agrees: “I appreciate how nice everyone is in the SOMA community. Living in the SOMA community makes it easier to engage with others and to go out and meet new people. Of course we miss the Philippines. But because a lot of people have connections to the Philippines, everyone here feels like family!”
With his arm around his wife in their immaculate living-dining-bed-room, he reminisces: “We arrived here in San Francisco without anything. Without money and only some clothes. SOMCAN helped us look for affordable housing. Overall, we are happy. We have good relationships with not only the Pilipino community, but with everyone.”
Like widening ripples in a lake, SOMCAN involves people in the mission of preserving and strengthening this historic community for low-income families of diverse ethnicities and languages. Staff members like Juvy “open the gateways” for immigrant families through housing services, and they in turn become community members, involved in carrying forward this mission.
