Finalist: Gabrielle Lurie of the San Francisco Chronicle
Nominated Work
Laurie Steves, 56, cries out of frustration after several unsuccessful attempts to find her daughter Jessica Didia, who is homeless and addicted to fentanyl, in the Tenderloin neighborhood in San Francisco, Calif. Laurie moved to San Francisco with the idea that she would stay there for “as long as it takes” for Jessica to get clean.
Laurie arrived in San Francisco with only about $1,000, mostly donations from family. She rented a room in a Bayview neighborhood home for $1,100 a month — exactly double what she paid for rent in Port Orchard, Wash. She had no trouble paying her bills back home on her $17.69 hourly wage as a cook in a nursing home, and she hoped her finances would pencil out here, too. She placed Zachary’s ashes and a large photo of him in her new bedroom.
Jessica DiDia, 34, looks at her needle, which isn’t properly registering into her arm, as she shoots crystal meth with friend Rasool (right) on Turk Street. She often mixes other drugs with fentanyl because it no longer gets her high.The drug is an incredibly powerful synthetic opioid that’s cheaper, easier to obtain and far more powerful than heroin. Jessica says she’s overdosed at least 50 times, only to be brought back by a shot of Narcan. The overdose statistics are stark, nearly 2 people taken to the medical examiner’s office every day. “It makes me wonder,” Laurie said, “when is my daughter going to be one of those two?’
After nearly 10 years and ducking Laurie for weeks, Jessica finally reunited with her mom following a chance encounter on the street. They had lunch at Denny’s on Mission Street. Laurie shelled out more than $50. They spent a few hours together, and Jessica used drugs three times. There seemed to be the beginning of rapport between them, and when Laurie promised to bring brownies to Jessica the next day, her daughter agreed. But when Laurie returned with the treats, Jessica was nowhere to be found.
Jessica sits on her suitcase on Turk Street after smoking crack. When Jessica appeared in a 2013 episode of the National Geographic show Drugs Inc. She looked into the camera and said, “Somebody told me when I first moved here, ‘People don’t come here to live. They come here to die.’ I’m hoping I don’t make that statistic true.”
Laurie watches helplessly as her daughter Jessica smokes a mixture of crack and fentanyl in her car. This was the second time they had seen one another in nearly 10 years. San Francisco’s homeless and drug crises are deeply intertwined. The city’s last homeless count found 8,011 homeless people in the city — 42% of them, like Jessica, struggling with an alcohol or drug addiction.
Laurie wheels daughter Jessica DiDia into St. Francis Hospital. Jessica was hit by a car and hurt her knee but never made it beyond the waiting room after getting into a fight with her mother. Jessica says fentanyl helps with an intense pain in her left leg that she has refused to let doctors examine because she hates hospitals. She keeps the wound, which smells rancid and oozes pus, wrapped in dirty bandages.
Jessica smokes a cigarette with mom Laurie Steves on Ellis Street in the Tenderloin. Laurie tried to stay positive, but she sometimes found herself reflecting on her regrets as a mom.
Laurie Steves puts her hand to her head as she watches an episode of the TV series “Private Practice'' in which a character overdoses on drugs. By the end of July, Laurie realized her quest was pointless. Jessica didn’t want to stop using drugs and didn’t want her mom there.
Laurie and Jessica embrace before Laurie leaves town. They lingered in front of Laurie’s car, neither one ready to say goodbye. This wasn’t the ending Laurie envisioned. Laurie had upturned her life for 3½ months, but Jessica’s life remained exactly the same. Yet at least they had spent some time together and Jessica was still alive, a small miracle in this city.
Jessica smokes crack on Eddy Street after her mom moved back to Washington, having failed to get Jessica to agree to get help. “It’s like a vortex,” Jessica said of life on the streets in San Francisco. “I want to get out of here. But why the f— would I leave here if I have everything I need given to me? It might be enabling or it might be keeping you in a cycle, but at least you can survive,” she continued. “That’s better than a lot of places.”
Biography
Gabrielle Lurie is a staff photographer at the San Francisco Chronicle. Originally from Washington, D.C., Gabrielle previously worked as a freelancer in the Bay Area. She is a graduate of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, where she studied fine art photography and art history. Gabrielle focuses on longer-term stories on topics ranging from homelessness and wildfires to immigration and wealth disparity. Most recently she began organizing the Bay Area Women Photograph group, where photographers in the Bay Area gather for events, to share ideas and collaborate. Her work has been recognized by Pictures of the Year International, National Press Photographers Association, The 30: New and Emerging Photographers to Watch, American Photography, and the San Francisco/Northern California Awards.