Former Homeless Student Earns Master's, Works To Help Others

SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) -- Moving day is a thrill for any first time homebuyer, but for someone who was once homeless, it is much more than that.

"It is pretty exciting!" said Janasha Higgins. "It's nice to know that I'm securing land for my family so we can have investments for our future."

She bustles around her new home, unpacking boxes, opening some that were in storage as if they were new gifts. Owning a home offers a security Janasha never had growing up.

We met her 12 years ago, when she was a senior with a bright smile at the Alameda Learning Center.

She was homeless that senior year, but in spite of that she maintained a laser focus on school.

"Her mantra was this is it. I need to focus on school," her mentor at the time, Lorna Velasco told us. "College, college, college is all she thought about and nothing was going to stop her."

Nothing. Period. Not even the stay in the Rescue Mission Homeless Shelter in Richmond.

Janasha had developed a steel-reinforced determination to pull herself out of that kind of poverty and she had developed it the hard way. Growing up, she had to be independent. Her father died of drug overdose when she was only 3. Her mother was in prison for 5 years for selling drugs.

Things were more stable for a time when her mom was released but then her mom had a major stroke. That shook their family like an 8.0 earthquake.

Janasha, at the age of 16, was in charge of everything.

"It was devastating and became a major change to my life," Janasha told us. "I had a job, I had to raise my brother and sister and I was also taking care of my mother and managing school at the same time."

Those experiences shaped and strengthened Janasha and it brought out something else in her. Her mentor, Lorna Velasco was the one who made the observation, that moving around, being homeless, and having a mother with a stroke, "propelled her to want to give back."

Janasha graduated from SFSU with a BA in Psychology with honors; then went on to got a masters in social work from the University of Michigan.

Her resume is four pages long and packed with accomplishments and years of experience doing research and working with the homeless. All of her work experience involves helping others.

"Other people were there to help me so it's a way to give back to help other people," she says.

Now, she works for the Marcus Foster Education Institute in Oakland, using data for creating more educational opportunities for students of color.

One of the initiatives she is working on targets black males throughout the San Francisco Bay Area region, finding out what works best for them in preparing them for college and/or career opportunities beyond high school.

"My goal is to help support more students get to and through college but to also have better opportunities after high school," she explains.

But the whole reason she came back to the Bay Area was for family. With her mother in a homeless shelter, Janasha returned to help her grandmother co-parent her younger sister.

"I love her dearly," she says of her sister. "I almost feel as if I'm her mother and I now that sometimes she wishes she could call me mom, but you know… We're close. We're very, very close."

Her sister is living with her in their new home.

Back in high school, Lorna Velasco said something that seems even truer today -- "she's very tenacious. Nothing can stop her."

Her new home is an example of that fighting spirit.

"It's very tiny, but it's mine," says Janasha.

Well, it's true her unit is tiny, but she bought the whole triplex. So, she is already a landlord. A landlord with plans, as she tells us.

"I will continue to have it in the family for about 7 years, before I try to buy something else," she says.

And we believe her!