NPH invites you to meet some of the people who live in affordable housing in the Bay Area. They are families, senior citizens, young people. They come from different ethnic backgrounds and they have different dreams and aspirations. They are as diverse as the Bay Area itself. What is the same for all of them is how having a decent, safe, and affordable place to call home has changed their lives.

Their stories are also the stories of all of us who work to increase affordable housing. Because we know that in the end, it’s not about how many units we’ve built or how much money we’ve raised. It’s about the people have been able to improve their lives because they have a stable home where they can raise their families and pursue their dreams. We’d like to share these stories with you, and we hope you will share them with others, and help us tell the story of affordable housing in the Bay Area.

Here is the first in our “Telling Our Stories” series, stay tuned to read all these amazing stories of the coming months.

DeLonzo, Taryn, Kiomi and Colette Pope
One Church Street Apartments
San Francisco, California

After graduating from San Francisco’s Galileo High School, DeLonzo Pope took a job as a security guard. Over the next 10 years he worked his way up, becoming a supervisor, taking on more responsibility and earning better pay. He married his high school sweetheart, Kiomi, and they started a family. Yet despite DeLonzo’s steady job, he felt he was falling behind.

“Here I was, working more than 40 hours a week, bringing home $15 an hour or more,” recalls DeLonzo. “Still, I was struggling to pay for rent, food and clothing.”

Then DeLonzo became very ill with pneumonia. While recovering, he decided to make some life changes – including finding a living situation that didn’t take the lion’s share of his income. After applying for Section 8 housing, the Popes moved into an affordable flat at One Church Street Apartments, a development in the Duboce Triangle neighborhood.

It was the best move the Popes ever made. DeLonzo is now pursuing a career in graphic design, his lifelong passion. Daughter Collette recently won scholastic recognition and son Taryn is following in DeLonzo’s footsteps with an interest in Tae Kwon Do.

“It’s beautiful here,” DeLonzo said of his home, where the family moved in 2003. “I love our neighbors. It’s close to where I grew up. I feel blessed.”

Stay tuned for the rest of these uplifting stories!