Mia Franco

At Photoworks on Market Street in San Francisco, my neighbor Mia is picking up a print of a picture from an Etsy artist, who created a painting of her sister Siera’s two cats, Po and Kurt. Kurt suddenly passed away a few weeks ago at the age of four, and Mia wanted Siera to have something that would commemorate Kurt.

“I actually was first thinking of getting just an image of Kurt,” she says as we look over the picture. “But it just made more sense to have Po in there too since Kurt and Po were so close.”

It was the Etsy artist who made the painting, but the concept could not be more representative of Mia’s personality. The watercolor-painted Po and Kurt staring at you, set against a plain white background, with Kurt lifting his left paw as if he’s about to share an insider tip. It’s thoughtful and comforting, and it’s just the right amount of pensive: never brooding, always hopeful.

The first time I ever saw Mia was a few days after I had moved into my new building. I knew that she was one of the neighbors on the ground floor, that she always had a warm smile, and that she shared the apartment with a partner and a cute dog. But it took a full year for us to officially meet, which finally happened at a birthday party for our neighbors’ one-year old. I spotted her sitting at the backyard table, with her dog Rosie resting under the chair, so I brought over a bag of chips and introduced myself.

Mia was exactly like I imagined her to be. Personable, at ease, always giving you undivided attention. I learned that she was a social worker in San Francisco, helping people—often those who were unhoused—with their addiction and mental health. She also knew all the other neighbors. She once reached out to our building management when they wanted to tear down our backyard and said they should not do it because the neighbors with the one-year old had invested so much time to make the backyard a communal space for the rest of us. I also learned that the partner she lived with was her fiancé at the time, but that they have since broken off the engagement, and that her younger sister Siera moved in and became her new housemate.

We started going out for coffee every once in a while, and as I learned about Mia and her compassionate outlook on the world, I started realizing how much I didn’t know about San Francisco, and to that extent, America in general. At the beginning of the summer, she agreed to talk to me for the magazine and to offer a glimpse into her inspiring, undisguised lifestyle.

When we meet almost two months later for our interview, the day we pick up the picture from Photoworks, it turns out that I couldn’t have picked a more turbulent time in Mia’s life to profile her, which is ironically also the best timing to show how collected and down-to-earth she is. As we’re leaving Photoworks, Mia tells me that, one month ago, she also broke up with the guy that she had been dating for the past year. I knew this was not just a breakup for Mia. It was the first relationship she had after breaking off her engagement, and that she really enjoyed spending time with this guy. When she talked to a psychic from Portland, the psychic told her that Mia had found a soulmate.

“I never got sick of him,” she tells me. “That was something new and something really valuable to me. I loved the way that he saw the world, and I was genuinely interested in his opinions. That’s something that I didn’t have before and it was really refreshing to feel that.”

But even a soulmate can come with constraints. And in their case, the constraints were that his parents did not want his life partner to be someone who was not Indian. Early on in their relationship, Mia thought this was a soft constraint, something that parents prefer but do not enforce. However, as time passed and things got more serious between the two of them, it became clear that his parents actually meant it. So much so that even after one year of dating, he never actually told his parents about Mia. She remained a secret.

The whole situation on its own was enough for Mia to lose sleep, but then on top of that, her coworker—a young woman in her thirties—suddenly passed away. It was a shock to everyone, and it’s something that Mia is still processing.

When so much loss occurs, I have generally seen two behaviors happen as a result. People go into full denial, doing everything that they can to seem positive, or they withdraw and spiral into melancholy. With Mia, neither seems to happen. Instead, she describes her feelings with precision, concisely pointing out what she fears and what makes her doubt herself, but she does so with palpable maturity, as if she knows that the only antidote to events like these is to actually show up, acknowledge what just happened, and proceed with hope.

That’s what’s happening today. Despite these stressful events, Mia is still fully present for the interview and wants to go to Arizmendi Bakery in The Mission to eat some pastries while we talk about her life—an activity that she says will probably be a good way for her to feel balanced again.

At Arizmendi, her demeanor is warm and comforting as usual, and she is telling me about Tehachapi, a mountain city in Southern California where she grew up. Surrounded by vast scenic fields, Tehachapi was a great albeit insular place for a kid like Mia. She was curious about everything, wanted to understand how things worked, spent a lot of time in nature, and did sports like tennis and track. Mia is also the oldest of three siblings: her brother Nick is three years younger and her sister Siera is seven years younger.

While she definitely had an idyllic life in the mountains of Southern California, she was by all means not a sheltered kid. Mia became estranged from her mom at the age of fourteen when her mom got addicted to drugs.

Her mom’s story reflects the reality of many people in modern America: she was initially prescribed opioids, eventually got addicted to them, and then started using street drugs, falling down the addiction spiral. Mia says her mom quickly started decompensating.

“What does that mean?” I ask.

“Her mental health deteriorated rapidly, and she was not able to handle normal life stressors anymore. It was hard even having a coherent conversation with her.”

Her parents ended up separating but Mia remained very close with her dad, and she has a tight relationship with him even today. She is, however, not in touch with her mom.

“Siera sometimes talks to her,” she adds, “but I don’t. If you had asked me when I was younger what I thought of my mom, I probably would have said she was a shitty person. But today, I have empathy and compassion for her, after all these years of being a social worker. I learned that everyone has their own story, and the reality is that I have never had that conversation with her. I haven’t heard her side of the story.”

“Are you okay with things being that way?”

“I’m okay leaving it as is,” Mia answers. “It’s really weird for me to talk about this because my gut reaction when people ask about my mom is to say that she’s dead. Not because I am ashamed but because that’s what the situation feels like to me. I have grieved my relationship with her and accepted that my life story has to go on without her.”

There is potential here for a glamorized, feel-good story. These unfortunate circumstances estrange Mia from her mother, she turns this pain into passion, and her commitment to social work is a result of Mia’s personal experience with a family member whose life was destroyed by addiction.

But Mia’s personality is unaffected. There are no airs about her, which means the glamorized, feel-good story about the relationship between her and her mom doesn’t exist either.

“Actually, I don’t think I was inspired by her,” she adds. “I think I would have chosen social work even if it hadn’t been for this situation. I think it was the reverse actually. Social work taught me to have more compassion for her.”

When she talked to the Portland psychic, one of the things that he told Mia—without knowing anything about her family history—was that her life was meant to unfold without the presence of her mom’s soul.

If anything, it was her dad who was an inspiration for Mia. He always encouraged her to do what she felt was right, not what she thought was smart. Looking back, she realizes that much of her work ethic, driven by passion instead of material greed, is based on her dad’s life philosophy.

Mia says that she learned how to be independent early on as a result of this family dynamic. I write down in my notepad that Mia’s brother Nick and sister Siera were really young when all of this happened, so a part of me can’t help but wonder if her mom indirectly influenced Mia’s trajectory in life, by putting Mia in a position in which she had to become the precocious, independent oldest child who would always follow her own path.

Mia enrolled at Vanguard University and majored in Cultural Anthropology. Her sense of empathy would further grow in college after being exposed to the extremeness of Christianity around her. Vanguard is a private Christian university in Southern California, which Mia imagined would be similar to the vibe in Tehachapi: religious but focused mostly on building a community, not on following dogmatic practices. It was a shock to witness the more zealous side of religion when she saw her friends being victims of unacceptance.

“My best friend in college was gay,” she says. “It was really hard to watch how he was treated. The university tried to force him into conversion therapy. I honestly just didn’t realize how inhumane religion could be until then.”

After college, she worked at various places in LA, including Whole Foods and even a credit union. Mia loved this period. She was sharing apartments with other girls, discovering LA’s nightlife, and getting the city life she always felt she needed. But she also knew that she had to be in a job that was in service to others and a career that was done for the greater good.

Throughout this period, she was also volunteering at a local homeless shelter, where she met social workers and realized social work could be a viable career for her. She ended up enrolling at CalState LA for a two-year Master’s in social work, and got a job as a psychiatric social worker for LA County Department of Mental Health after graduating, where she worked for three and a half years.

It was during this time that Mia started dating the ex-fiancé who would later move to San Francisco with Mia for her new job. Once they broke off the engagement, Siera moved into the apartment and became Mia’s housemate, which proved to be an important event in their revamped sibling relationship.

This made Mia’s adjustment to San Francisco easier, but the jarring difference between San Francisco’s highly-visible opioid crisis and its concentrated pockets of astronomical wealth also made her realize that she was dealing with a culture far more intense than that of LA.

And when the fentanyl crisis surged during the pandemic, the discomfort and lack of empathy for the city’s unhoused population, often addicted to opioids, became even more prominent. Mia noticed this particularly through dating. She has been on dates with guys who would quickly change the subject once they found out she is a social worker who interacts with people addicted to substances or those who are unhoused and struggling with mental health issues. On a few occasions, she even got the “oh, so you work with crazy people” response.

“I think some people are just not comfortable with the idea of people on the streets,” she says. “At the end of the day, that’s another form of other-ism. These people are not different from us. It can happen to anyone.”

Mia has learned not to push these conversations with her dates—or any other person in her life for that matter—if she senses that they are not ready to face the truth. And the sobering truth is exactly what Mia says: it can happen to anyone, be it substance addiction or mental health issues.

“Do you think people change the subject or say things like that to you because they don’t want to admit all of those situations could actually happen to them as well?” I ask her.

“Possibly,” she answers. “Or maybe they just don’t know anyone going through it, or at least don’t know anyone going through it openly.”

“When you say openly, you mean that you are working with a lot of people who have jobs, careers, a house, and are also struggling with addiction?”

“Oh, definitely. Addiction is not confined to the streets. I see it everywhere. These people might be functioning but they are still struggling.”

So, what does a day in the life of Mia look like then? Well, it depends. When she’s doing her primary job at the Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital in the Psychiatric Emergency Services, Mia and her team are helping those people who have been put on a 5150. That’s public welfare code that allows for an adult experiencing a mental health crisis to be involuntarily detained for 72-hour psychiatric hospitalization if the social workers determine the person is a danger to others or themselves. I understood it best as actual crisis management.

Because the hospital provides care to anyone who needs it, regardless of their ability to pay, this is where Mia sees and interacts with a lot of the city’s unhoused population.

If she’s doing her part-time job, working as on-call behavioral health clinician for Kaiser Permanente, Mia is now the one evaluating whether a person should be put on 5150. I understood it best as crisis evaluation.

Kaiser members who are experiencing a mental health crisis talk to Mia over video by visiting one of Kaiser’s virtual stations, and Mia then determines whether they fit the criteria for a 5150. Because Kaiser insurances are purchased by those who can afford it, this is where Mia sees and interacts with a lot of the city’s working, housed population—often mislabeled as “the regular people.”

We leave Arizmendi and sit on Valencia Street to listen to a singer-songwriter perform in front of Hila Gelato Caffè. About five minutes in, Mia gets a work call. Someone just checked in for evaluation, and because she’s on call for Kaiser today, she has to evaluate the severity of the crisis. Which means we need to go to a bus stop so that Mia can get home in time.

“Do you ever get drained by this job?”

“It’s easy to lose hope,” she says. “There are days when I feel really discouraged. My job is to hold hope for people who need help, and I need to be able to tell them that there is a way out. But, when it’s really problematic, like fentanyl addiction, the reality is that finding a way out is extremely hard. And that can be hard for me.”

There are still many moments of joy. Mia says that her team at work is unwaveringly supportive and that all of them share the deep, intrinsic desire to serve those who need help. It’s something that Mia thinks is absolutely necessary in this type of work, because even the slightest ounce of self-interest increases the likelihood of breaking under pressure. Most importantly, when people do eventually conquer their demons, witnessing that sort of victory as a social worker is very rewarding.

“I’ve seen so many people over the years of working as a social worker. You see so much of human suffering through their stories, but you also see the depths of people’s humanity. When you are able to witness that and when you can be part of their recovery, you see the beauty of human resilience. And people are very resilient. That’s the one thing I always hold close to my heart, and it’s something that keeps me going.”

On the bus, Mia is telling me about personal activities that keep her sane—from exercise to more carefree hobbies like astrology and skincare—and bring structure to the chaotic world around her. This has especially been helpful after she transitioned into a managerial role. The change was initially hard, particularly because she based a lot of her identity on “being on the ground” with social work, but today she sees the value in her being the enabler for her team.

Three women on the bus, sitting across from us, are listening to our conversation and the one in the middle leans over a bit more when we start discussing the relationship between the rise of fentanyl and recreational drug use in the city.

“What’s your stance on things like party drugs? Are you the friend who always carries Narcan with you?” I ask her.

She smiles.

“I actually am! I mean, I don’t go out as much anymore, but if I do go to a party or a festival and if I bring a purse, I always make sure to have some Narcan with me.”

Mia’s friends are not into recreational drugs anyway, so it’s not something that she has to deal with. But she also realizes that a lot of other people like to go out, party, and get high, which is not going to change any time soon.

“It’s not something that I am a fan of, but if you are going to do it, make sure to test the drug so that you know you’re getting the real stuff. Drugs like coke are laced with fentanyl these days. I have seen cases of people dying from fentanyl overdoses, and those people initially thought they were just doing coke.”

What I appreciate about Mia is that I feel genuinely at ease around her, even when we are talking about really heavy stuff. She is innately optimistic, and not in that fake sort of way, when all you want to do is shred yourselves to pieces but you instead clench your teeth and keep reciting some pop-psychology platitudes. What I mean is authentically optimistic, when you know that, despite all the really messy stuff out there that actually sucks, there is still so much inspiring beauty in the world that can fill us with joy. It’s probably what makes her so selfless and a great social worker.

Two days later, I pass by Mia’s apartment in the morning on my way to buy bread and notice that she and Siera have put up a wheat-color wreath on their door, made of dried branches and small leaves. I think about how this couldn’t be more Mia, acknowledging the fall season as it gracefully inherits the throne from the summer and creates space for new memories. I recall her telling me that she just started seeing someone, a guy who grew up in San Francisco, and that she likes the novelty of dating a guy who’s been in the city his whole life. She will also be going to Brazil in a month to reward herself with a well-deserved vacation.

As I step out on the street, I see none other than Mia herself, at the crosswalk, wearing a helmet and riding a motor scooter—an image I have not seen before.

“Wow,” I say and wave at her, “this vibe really looks good on you! Are you heading home?”

“Thanks,” she waves back. “No, I’m off to work.”

I ask her if she can pick up my packages while I am out of town. She smiles, says of course, pulls the gas handle on her scooter, and rides off into the distance. I think about the fact that very few people are aware of all the good that she will do today and about the fact that it’s also a thought that would never really cross Mia’s mind.