As the days get shorter, first grade teacher Esmeralda Jiménez watches the dimming afternoon sky outside her classroom window the way her pupils watch the clock at dismissal time.
The studio apartment Jiménez rents for $1,783 a month, or 43 percent of her salary, is located in one of San Francisco’s sketchiest neighborhoods. Getting home involves running a gantlet of feces-strewn sidewalks, popping crack pipes, discarded needles and menacing comments — daily irritants that become more daunting after dark.
“If I lived in a better area, I wouldn’t feel so scared going home and I would be able to stay at school a little longer,” Jiménez, 26, said. “You have so many things to do to prep for the next day, but it’s gotten to the point where even if I leave at a decent time I will walk three blocks out of my way to avoid some streets.”
