Peg Anderson

6/12/47-9/30/23

When our dear friend, Peg Anderson, passed away on September 30th surrounded by her loving family, after a three and a half year battle with cancer, the word quickly spread and her friends grieved her passing. Among them were her friends in the homeless community here. Speaking on behalf of SoHum Housing Opportunities, we’d like to publicly recognize and honor Peg with this expression of our gratitude for her selfless hard work, dedication and generosity in providing assistance and housing for the homeless population of Southern Humboldt County.

Peg has always been a compassionate person and in 2015, with the help of a small group of volunteers, she coordinated and hosted, an “extreme weather shelter” for Southern Humboldt’s homeless people, offering a warm meal and a warm place to sleep on nights when there were heavy rainstorms or when temperatures fell below freezing.

Seeing the homeless population grow in 2017, Peg wrote an article for the North Coast Journal about the need for assistance of Southern Humboldt’s homeless. In it she asked the question, “If not now, when?” and suggested that we not let one more winter pass without addressing the needs of our homeless neighbors.

Meanwhile, now in her 70’s, Peg and her life partner, Yashi Hoffman, continued running the Extreme Weather Shelter at local churches and the Mateel (community center) for the next couple of years. Also in 2017, Peg recruited a few more to the group of like-minded locals, to brainstorm about how to find more long-term ways to help the homeless, including funding, and engaging with Federal, State and County govermental agencies to help our group provide services and housing access to the homeless. Although she faced skepticism and resistance from some at first, Peg worked tirelessly to break down those walls.

In 2018, the group, now known as SoHum Housing Opportunities became a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization. Connecting with Affordable Homeless Housing Alternatives in Northern Humboldt County, Peg facilitated the start of the monthly shower events for the homeless in coordination with volunteers from Redwood Rural Health Center. That work continued for the next couple of years.

Her passion for this movement was palpable and infectious. Soon the Humboldt Area Foundation and governmental agencies started to take notice and provide funding for the various projects we proposed, including a “shelter in place” program during the initial Covid-19 pandemic, which sheltered the most medically vulnerable homeless in a local motel; providing them with vaccines, masks and guidelines to protect themselves and prevent spread of the virus. In that same year, under Peg’s direction, several of us decided to host a free monthly dinner for the homeless at her family’s restaurant in Garberville, CA. Through the dinners, we were able to pass out printed material about available services, give away warm socks and caps, dog food, small tents and sleeping bags that Peg quietly funded through an emergency fund she had started.

In February of 2020, the SHO board received the very sad news from our founder and president that due to her health concerns, she and Yashi would need to resign effective immediately. I was voted in as president, serving for the next 2 1/2 years and with her blessing and moral support, the board carried on with our work that Peg started over five years prior. She was truly “the wind beneath our sails” through all of this, and we miss her gentle wisdom. Today, under the steady guidance of Patte Rae as president, we honor our founder, our first president, and our very dear friend, the open-hearted, gracious, persistent and most of all kind, Peg Anderson.

~Cathy Miller, SHO Volunteer and former President