Close Encounters with the Storm: In Conversation with DST – Santa Cruz Project Manager, Heather Egli
Heather is the Project Manager for DST-Santa Cruz. Her coastal community was hit hard by January’s parade of storms which lashed California. We caught up with her to discuss the storms’ impact on the city’s vulnerable homeless residents.
An astonishing close call with a rogue wave in Santa Cruz.
Can you talk about the experience of living through the violent wet weather we received last month? And can you address the challenges experienced by people experiencing homelessness, especially since the impact on that community tends not to be covered by conventional news.
I think I will start with how it impacts our Team Members first before I tell you about my close encounter with a rogue wave. On January 4, the city decided to open the civic auditorium as a temporary shelter. The city reached out to me because they needed people to do outreach to connect with various pockets of unhoused folks and let them know a shelter was open. I packed up a bunch of our supplies like rain ponchos, socks, beanies, gloves, and water, and spent a few hours driving around in the rain handing out supplies, and flyers with shelter information. There were a large number of folks camped out under tarps that are lashed to sidewalks and people clustered in little groves of trees, so that’s who I was focusing on.
Some of our folks live up in wooded areas which are wild and remote. They are really susceptible to trees coming down and flooding due to oversaturation. And getting up and down—which some of them did do—was a dangerous effort. They have to hike a couple of miles to get to their shifts or get supplies. Some of them fell, dropped and lost possessions, and ruined their rain gear in the process. Those folks who I knew were unsheltered were really on my mind. I tried texting all of them, but I couldn’t reach everyone, which was really hard.
One of the big impacts, apart from safety, is that many of our Team Members only have one extra change of clothing. So now they’re faced with a situation in which they’re cold, they’re wet, and they have one change of clothing.
One shouldn’t underestimate the value of being dry.
I’ve been involved professionally and personally with this community for a long time and I still hear things that surprise me. It may be shocking to hear a person experiencing homelessness say they need to downsize, but if you can’t keep yourself and your things dry, then even a few possessions can become a problem.
What was the general attitude about the civic auditorium as a place of shelter?
About two-thirds of the people I met in outreach took the flyers. I was careful to say that I wasn’t affiliated with the shelters, and that I was from DST and I was mainly here to check on safety and supplies and to offer a shelter flyer. I know folks have different views on government agencies, and I didn’t want that to be a barrier to anything I could offer them right then and there.
You had a close call during all of this. And you caught it on video!
I went down to West Cliff on my way to work on January 6 which is when the major coastal damage occurred in Santa Cruz, Capitola, and Aptos. The wind was up and the tide was coming in. I parked for about a half hour to watch the surging sea, maybe take a video of the spectacular splashing. Suddenly, a giant rogue wave rolled in and hit about five of us who were parked. I actually have a video of it hitting my car from the inside. It knocked my car back several feet, and forced a bunch of sand and seawater through my closed moon roof. I was completely drenched. My car was totaled. The car next to me took a boulder to the windshield. No one was hurt, thankfully. Not long after that, more waves took out the road where we were parked. There is only half a road left, and the City is figuring out how to pay for the millions it will cost to repair it.
What has been the experience of drying out? Of getting back to normal?
Long. In the following week when the rains started again, we had to evacuate the DST Santa Cruz office. It sits right below the San Lorenzo River levee. I drove up to the levee to check it out and the water was about three feet from the top. I didn’t want to take any chances, especially after my close encounter, so I evacuated the Santa Cruz office to higher ground. We went to a coffee shop to get our work done.
Eventually all our Team Members made it to shelters or checked in with us. We had a few Team Members trapped on Highway 9, though. One of them—bless his heart—didn’t have a phone and didn’t know that DST cleanup shifts were canceled. He hitched a ride to town on a PG&E truck, but then was stuck here with no way to return and had to pay for a hotel room. He ruined his shoes in the process. These are all the challenges that most of us don’t think of. We can change our shoes no problem, but when one of our Team Members loses or ruins their shoes, they can’t be out doing life with inappropriate footwear.
Our Team Members returned to shifts when the rain stopped. There’s a lot to clean up. Our Beach Team sent me pictures from the shore and it was just covered with logs. We’re out there doing alternate routes, doing what we can do. Luckily, I know that all of our TMs are safe.
How has the response been to our public call for help?
Wonderful! In addition to donations, we received lots of socks (which go fast), waterproof tops and pants that you can slip on over your clothes, gloves, hats, and handwarmers. Those are always well received as well as tents and sleeping bags. Even things that may seem frivolous become important—for example, power bricks. Some of our folks camp in remote areas and can’t charge their phones. And being out of communication can be dangerous on a lot of levels. These are helpful to lend out to our people so they can communicate and make it to their shifts on time.
Tell us a bit about yourself and how you found your way to DST.
I used to run academic computing labs and technology projects at Stanford and UCSC. However, what my husband and I really wanted to do is become foster parents. Through CASA I was matched with a 14-year-old who had spent most his life in group homes and had a very rough time most of his life. We fostered and then adopted him when he turned 17, and he is the love and light of our lives. He became unhoused a little over four years ago, which obviously was heartbreaking. But we’ve maintained our connection with him and his community, and these relationships have helped shape the course of my career.
As a former foster parent, I was very close to a lot of the County Social Workers. That drew me in to running Santa Cruz County’s first hotel for the most medically vulnerable unhoused. I oversaw several other County shelters as well over the next two years. I really wanted to be a Social Worker, so I took a temporary position as an Adult Protective Services Social Worker.
I knew about DST and worked in the same circles as DST. I had even attended a Weekly Success Meeting, but it wasn’t until I went to an art exhibit at the London Nelson Community Center that included photos by a
few of the Santa Cruz Team Members that it clicked. I went home after that, looked up DST, and saw that they had a job opening and applied.
Is there anything you’d like to add about your experience working at DST Santa Cruz?
What I really value about DST as an organization is that it encourages outreach and engagement even if you’re more on the program side of things rather than on the direct service side of things. Working and being inside the community is paramount. That’s really important to me – none of us can ever be too separate from those we serve. Even as the Project Manager, I want and need to be in the middle of what’s happening with our Team Members.
The other thing is that we’ve had some big encampments here in Santa Cruz, and I know encampments divide the community. There are environmental impacts, health impacts, human service impacts, but people are human beings and no one deserves to be unsheltered. Everyone deserves to be safe.
Because of my relationship with my son, I know a lot of these folks personally, and I know their stories. Many are shocking to hear. There is always a story we don’t know about, and it’s easy to judge what’s going on because of our own fear and discomfort. I hope we all give people the benefit of the doubt. And I think DST Santa Cruz is a critical part of Santa Cruz to help move our community through this.