[Editor's Note: Hoodline is participating in this week's SF Homeless Project, in which more than 80 area publications are each covering homelessness issues in their own ways.

To highlight the voices of current and former homeless people residing in our neighborhoods, we've partnered with Stories Behind The Fog, which is on a mission to humanize homelessness by telling the stories of 100 people who are or have been homeless in the Bay Area.

Read on to meet Isabella, a transgender female who's turbulent childhood and search for acceptance led her to San Francisco, where she's living in shelters and searching for employment.]

I grew up in Bakersfield and lived there from about the age of six until I was 20. I came from a family of eight. One mom, no dads. The oldest is about 30 and the youngest is about 15. I was number 5. We lived in a two- or three-bedroom house, but we were always moving. A house isn’t what makes a family, it’s the family that makes the family.

My mom has never explained why we were moving every couple of years, but only said “family problems.” There was a lot of drinking with my family. When alcohol is involved, that’s when things are said and people are hurt. A lot of salty pretzels. Everyone of my brothers and sisters have a different dad. It’s kind of weird, but OK.

Weekends were the worst things ever. Everyone was loud, drunk, stupid, and trying to pick a fight. I was around nine when I remember talking to all of them. They were just out of their own minds. I was the kid who showed up to school six hours early, just because I didn’t want to be at home.

I didn’t do very good at school because of all the moving around. I went to about six different high schools.

I realized I couldn’t depend on someone who’s always drunk to do everything for me. I kind of have to do it for myself, so as I matured, I became very cold, calculating and very logical. None of us in the family get along today. Let’s put it this way, they would all vote for Donald Trump if they could.

I came out to my mom when I was 13. I said, “Mom, I don’t know how to tell you this, but I think I’m a girl. I like girl's things and do girl-like things.”

And she said, “We’re not going to talk about this ever again.”

And we never did, until last year.

It was terrifying to hear that. She thought I was going to hell. She’s a pentecostal christian. For the longest time, usually when she was hammered, she’d walk up to me and say, “It’s OK, I accept you if you’re gay, just come out.”

I felt like, 'OK, but when I came out as female she couldn’t accept me.'

I guaranteed my mom that at the age of 18, I’m out. That day, that minute I turned 18, I moved out with friends.

When I was 20, I visited my boyfriend’s house. He was living with a friend of his, Angel, and her fiancé. I liked their place and asked if I could move in with them. Everything got along for several months. I was working door to door selling security systems and cable tv packages. Since everyone was chipping in to the house needs, things were working out well.

Angel’s fiancé came home drunk one night and started hitting her. I gave him a warning, “Don’t ever hit her again or you will not like it.”

A couple weeks later, guess what he comes home and does? The same thing. I interfered and broke two of his ribs, parts of his arms and fingers. He had it coming.

Angel broke up with him. His grandparents, who owned the house, came over shortly thereafter and told everyone to move out.

Angel’s family let me move in with them for a few weeks, then I moved back home with my mom for a couple of months.

Later, I ran into Angel on the bus, she said, “I don’t know what happened, I don’t know why you left. I just wanted to know, if you wouldn’t mind going out with me?”

We started dating, and I moved with her parents.

I had about $30 in my pocket when I came to San Francisco. I wasn’t sure when my next meal was going to be. The housing, the food, was all provided by Larkin Street. I got on food stamps and on General Assistance, which was brand new to me because Bakersfield didn’t have any kind of system. I get $466 a month.

No one ever told me how expensive San Francisco is. People are leaving the city because it’s too freaking expensive. Anyone who works in the city generally wants to work for the tech companies, it’s the only way they can stay in the city without working seven jobs.

Someone still has to do those small jobs. I’ve applied to about 100 jobs. From Macy’s to YouTube, and in between to Target, Goodwill and other restaurants. Not very many interviews. Most people aren’t interested in my resume. When you don’t have experience doing anything, no one wants you. You can run for president of the United States without government experience, the most powerful position, but I need a bachelor’s and 35 years' experience just to work at a barista job?

I identify as a trans-female. First thing I did when I got to the shelter, and I experienced this everywhere for the first week, because I had not started transitioning whatsoever. People were assuming that I was a trans-guy, instead of a female. Anything I tried to use as female, everyone was like, “You’re male, stop it.” This went one for almost my first year in SF. It’s rare I get mixed up anymore, and it doesn’t bother me if people do.

I didn’t know there was a process for it. I thought you just wore clothes and people would treat you like a lady. I had no clue about any of this until I started coming out here. I’m still not familiar with all the terms and the technology. All I know is from what my doctors have told me over time with X-rays—who I am and what they have seen and what they can do.

One of my mother’s younger relatives, who is 14, came out to her family as lesbian. Her father kicked her out because he couldn’t accept her. They found her a couple weeks later. She committed suicide. It was very sad.

Even in the darkest storm clouds the light can still come through. It came through to my mom and right down straight to me. My mom said she doesn’t ever want to lose me, so this can’t happen. She took her own time. Finally, she chose to reach out to me on her own.

Images and interview edited by J.P. Dobrin, and originally published on Stories Behind The Fog.

For more 'Stories Behind The Fog,' meet Chef Richard in SoMa, Bonnie in the Financial District, Ben and Cristina in Civic Center, Queen in the Mission, and look for additional profiles on our site throughout this week.