Tag Archives: homelessness

New Homeless Navigation Center on Embarcadero sparks debate

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  Alabama and his dog sit on a curb along Market St. PHOTO CREDIT: Mytrisha Sarmiento

By Mytrisha Sarmiento

Staff Editor 

A veteran named Alabama has currently been living on the streets of San Francisco for nine years. He was born in Detroit, but grew up in Tennessee. He found his way to San Francisco due to medical reasons. 

When asked if there should be more Homeless Navigation Centers around the city, he responded, “That’s a hard question, because, if you put in more, more people come to the city for that. In Tennessee we don’t have Navigation Centers, therefore there are no homeless.” 

Alabama is just one of many living on the streets of San Francisco. The city holds up to 24% of the national homeless population, which has increased by 17% since 2017 according to the San Francisco Chronicle. This comes to a total of an estimated 6,858 people who are homeless in the city today.

Alabama shared a possible solution in helping to alleviate the problem: “Quicker housing instead of being on a two-year or three-year waiting list. The first time I got housed on the city it took almost four years, and I know there are so many homeless people that the list is that long.” 

As part of the city’s efforts to tackle homelessness, Mayor Breed proposed the SAFE Homeless Navigation project in March 2019. The SAFE Homeless Navigation will hold 175 to 225 beds, which currently is the biggest Navigation Center in the Bay Area. This new establishment is located on a part of Seawall Lot 330 about two blocks from Piers 30-32. There have been a multitude of meetings, conferences and hearings held regarding the establishment. The opposition consists mainly of angry residents who are fixed to halt construction and discontinue the project as a whole.

The two sides of the argument created GoFundMe pages with the hope of gaining funding to support their arguments. The opposition raised $44,610 with an anonymous donor who contributed $10,000 alone. These funds will go to lawyers who will be fighting the Homeless Navigation Center in court. The people in support of the project raised a total of $176,015 on the GoFundMe page. That is almost triple the amount of the opposition.

When informed of the efforts to discontinue the project and the $44,610 raised to pay for lawyers to battle it in court, Alabama said, “Why would anyone do that? It just doesn’t make sense — Wow.” 

He said, “I think it will benefit 80% because not everybody who is homeless wants to be inside; there’s about 20 or 30 percent out there, so the ones that want to be off the streets will benefit a lot.” 

Employees of the Watermark said, “We remain neutral” when asked if they had an opinion on the Homeless Navigation Center being built to the right of the entrance to the building. 

A resident of the building who would not disclose their name said aggressively in a loud tone of voice, “This is a political statement!” There has been a lawsuit filed by residents in an attempt to stop the project. 

A resident of Bayside Village, Facundo Lucero, said, “It’s time San Francisco did something about the situation, but, to be honest, I don’t think I would be comfortable about a building near the area.” He appeared in a hurry to get back to his sandwich. This introduces a concept that has a dominant presence on the side of the opposition: NIMBYism. The Encyclopedia Britannica explains, “Not in My Backyard Phenomenon (NIMBY), also called Nimby, a colloquialism signifying one’s opposition to the locating of something considered undesirable in one’s neighborhood.” 

Aaron Cisneros a manager of a local business Bayside Market, said, “Yes, it will benefit the homeless people; I think we need something like this, but I don’t think this is the right area ’cause right here on Embarcadero it is very busy, and there are all these people that live here, families. In the news you can see everything that’s going on, and it’s scary, real scary.” 

When asked what other efforts could be put in place by the city in order to lessen the amount of homeless people on the streets, he said, “Well, we definitely need to come up with a way to help; I think it is pretty sad that there are so many homeless people in San Francisco. People need to address it. It’s gonna be hard to find a place — where are we gonna do this at? Everywhere they go they are going to unfortunately have a negative response; we need to do something — I don’t know what; I don’t know where to begin.”

The Homeless Navigation Center appears to have already had an effect on the local community. Mr. Cisneros said, “Yes, it already has people in the neighborhood talking about moving away. People who bought housing here because of the beautiful views are now ready to leave because of everything that’s going on. It may seem like a small percentage of people who leave but it makes me worry.”

He added, “I come to work at 5:45 in the morning, and I have to walk by every day, and it’s affecting my own safety, and I’m a guy. I’m a big guy, but you know what — I am no challenge against a gun or a knife. What are you gonna do? It’s scary.” 

Safety concerns are apparent considering that, as of 2016, the amount of homeless people in San Francisco who have a substance abuse disorder has risen, as depicted by San Francisco County SCS Snapshot 2016 . 

Eric Montanna, a superintendent of construction at the Homeless Navigation Center, said, “I like the project I’m building; I think we should be helping as much as possible.”

Mr. Montanna believes that this Homeless Navigation Center will help decrease the amount of homeless people on the streets, and this is important because “there is a lot of homeless on the street, sleeping on sidewalks.”

Furthermore, he said, “I think we need to create more jobs and find affordable housing or lower down housing prices.” Housing prices in the Bay Area are consistently increasing year by year, causing more people to move away or become homeless. This is another aspect of the overall homeless epidemic in the city. 

The final petition regarding the Homeless Navigation Center claimed that, as a result of the “rushed” construction, key steps of the process were overlooked. The building process also included public outreach and a comprehensive environmental review.

The residents are mainly concerned about the effects of the Homeless Navigation Center which the SFIST stated as “drug use, crime, and a general blight to their waterfront environs.” The lawsuit was dismissed by Superior Court Judge Ethan Shulman, who made a final ruling against Safe Embarcadero (who formally go by “Safe Embarcadero for All”), which is a non-profit organization mainly supported by businesses, local residents and other non-profit organizations. The restraining order made by the residents was overruled by the judge on the count that the opposition had failed to reason the potential harm they would endure if the project were to continue.

In response, Mayor Breed shared her opinions of the backlash and lawsuits on the city and county of San Francisco website. Mayor London Breed said, “Our City is in the midst of a homelessness crisis, and we can’t keep delaying projects like this one that will help fix the problem.When we have people suffering on our streets, we need to be able to provide them with the care and services they need.”

There is simply no one solution to the massive amount of homeless people in San Francisco. The solution will need to be a collective effort. The collection of problems in San Francisco have grown out of proportion, including skyrocketing housing prices, NIMBYism, the lengthy amount of time for homeless people to actually get into housing, and a lack of outreach to prevent homelessness, such as providing aid to families at risk of becoming homelessness and people living in their automobiles.

Meanwhile, the two-year lease for the Embarcadero will determine the effectiveness of the Homeless Navigation Center. If successful, the two-year lease on Seawall Lot 330 could be extended.

Human Rights class introduces students to current problems and solutions

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By Polina Runova

Staff Writer

The Expeditions course Human Rights is about “helping students become aware about the different human rights that we have,” instructor Angel Barragan said. He also said the course is “talking about the way that [human rights] are not being done or that they are being violated in some way.”

The course addresses many past and present problems concerning a variety of human rights. Students are introduced to current issues and what action they can take to advocate. “A lot of current epidemics in America are related to human rights,” Lilith Flowers, a sophomore at Tahoma, added. “There’s a lot there that I didn’t really know.”

Students in the class use documentaries, conversations and research to learn about the violation of basic human rights. The class is taught in a way that makes different issues become more relatable to the students. Immigration, homelessness and police brutality are all topics the class covers.

“It’s a very open class,” Miranda Sigala, a freshman at Tahoma, said. She mentioned how students are welcomed “with open arms.” Despite the tough material, students say they feel welcome in the class. “I felt very comfortable here,” Sigala said.

“What I really hope the students get out of this is just an immense amount of awareness,” Mr. Barragan said. “If students are able to just remember some of the lessons that we taught in this class, or make sure that they just can’t look away when injustice happens, that will make me very happy.”

See below for a video about the Human Rights course: 

San Francisco struggles to serve the homeless in the Bay Area

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By Melissa Domingo and Mytrisha Sarmiento

Staff Writers

The Homeless Youth Alliance is built on a bigger focus on empathy and care and their vans roam the streets of the Bay Area with one goal in mind: hand out needed items to the homeless, including food, hygiene products and more. These volunteers listen to the stories people share and create lasting bonds.

At LifeMoves, families are given a chance to overcome the challenges of being homeless. The residence’s workers help families by sharing services and advice until they are able to get back on their feet. Goal making and commitment is a big focus at LifeMoves.

According to an article in the San Francisco Chronicle, the local homeless population has been slowly decreasing, but there were still nearly 7,500 homeless people in San Francisco according to a 2017 one-night count. Is the Bay Area doing a sufficient job at keeping these numbers at bay?

The main causes of homelessness are insufficient funds for housing, unemployment, poverty and low wages.

According to the California Association of Realtors, the median housing price in San Francisco in the first quarter of 2018 was around $1.6 million. To qualify for a house in San Francisco, the association estimates that the minimum annual income needed would be approximately $333,000. These numbers conflict with the average annual income of approximately $97,000, as stated by Business Insider.

There are many organizations in the Bay Area that are trying to help homeless people.

What is the Homeless Youth Alliance doing for the homeless?

The Homeless Youth Alliance is a mobile outreach van fighting for a good cause and trying to help end the cycle of homelessness.

As a mobile outreach service, the Homeless Youth Alliance hands out hygiene products, snacks and other basic supplies needed by homeless people. Other than handing out supplies to homeless people, the Homeless Youth Alliance supports people by providing emotional support.

Kenn Sutto, an outreach program manager for Homeless Youth Alliance, believes that the most rewarding thing about his job is the interactions with participants. Learning about people and their lives is what Mr. Sutto finds the most inspiring.

Mr. Sutto found that their approach was a little unique; he found that there is a lot of focus on empathy and having a good work environment.

When asked what interested him in working with an organization like the Homeless Youth Alliance, Mr. Sutto replied, “I personally have always been interested in the aspects of what poverty is like in our country.” He also shared that hanging out with the homeless not only educates him but is rewarding.

Collaboration between shelters and organizations was also mentioned by Mr. Sutto. The organization collaborates with many centers, such as therapy centers and LGBTQ+ centers.

The pacing of work at this organization could be described as “really fast” and “often super busy.” As Mr. Sutto put it: “It’s a generally pretty busy job.”

When asked about how the organization deals with people who are apprehensive to accept help, Mr. Sutto explained that some people aren’t ready to accept help. “We offer people [help] – if they’re not ready for it, it’s cool.”

Mr. Sutto also found that the main causes of homelessness are complex. “There’s never really one thing … Everyone’s story is important and different … Everyone ends up where they are for a reason … It’s different for a lot of people.”

What is LifeMoves doing for the homeless?

LifeMoves is trying to break the cycle of homelessness. At LifeMoves, homeless families are given the opportunity to get back on their feet with the help of interim housing and services.

This shelter is specifically for families who are homeless; they have services across San Mateo county and Santa Clara county, with 17 shelters in total. Though LifeMoves is only based in California, they plan on expanding and becoming nationwide. There are other shelters in the works; in the next year, there will be a shelter open to LGBTQ+ youth in San Jose. There will also be a parking lot for individuals and families who live in cars and RVs.

The residents and clients of LifeMoves have access to mental health services and financial literacy that they wouldn’t otherwise have.

When asked what the shelter is trying to achieve, Jocelyne Arriaga, a Children’s Service Coordinator, explained they are “trying to get residents that are homeless into permanent housing where they’re safe.”

Ms. Arriaga found that “trying to get clients and residents into permanent housing” was one of the most rewarding things about her job. “[Finding] housing where they can be financially stable” was one of the many things she found fulfilling about her job.

When asked what interested her about working in a shelter, Ms. Arriaga replied, “For me, I just enjoy helping other people … finding them childcare. That’s one of the reasons why.”

Kate Hannon, a case manager intern and a student at San Jose State University working on a master’s in social work, helps families get back on their feet by keeping the residents accountable and by helping residents create goals. They create goals such as searching for apartments and budgeting 50 percent of their income.

She said that as a case manager “you’re committed to their success in the program.”

Ms. Hannon said that residents have to follow a set of rules when residing in the shelter. Clients have to sign agreements; they also do chores. A sober environment is also a requirement. The families have to commit to the program as soon as they enter the shelter. 

Both Ms. Hannon and Ms. Arriaga mentioned the importance of collaboration between shelters and centers. “That’s pretty much how we thrive,” Ms. Arriaga said. They mentioned that food drives and centers help with sustaining the residents and that residents receive free counseling.

Ms. Arriaga and Ms. Hannon would like people to know there are volunteer opportunities. “People can help; it’s not just up to agencies like us … We can all do something.”

One of the volunteering opportunities available is being a camp adviser or camp director; these opportunities are available to high school students. There are also internship opportunities for college students.

LifeMoves is also in need of clothes for teenage children, girls especially. Clothing drives and such would be helpful for the teenagers in the shelter.

How aware are people about the homelessness problem?

When asked about the awareness of the homeless problem in the Bay Area, Ms. Arriaga answered by saying, “There’s definitely a lot of awareness.”

Mr. Sutto said that there is a lot of awareness of the homelessness epidemic.

“Everyone’s talking about it: if you’re on the BART, if you’re on the bus, or if you read the paper. Everyone’s always talking about homelessness. It’s like, everyone knows how housing is really expensive here and that most people have a hard time paying rent now. I think that everyone is concerned about it and everyone’s talking about it, and people are like ‘Woah! … This is a really big problem, we have folks living in the streets, what’s the solution here?’ So, I think there’s a lot of people talking about it, and I think a lot of people really care, it’s just kind of a question of how it’s gonna translate into results, you know?”

How can we improve the homelessness problem in the Bay Area?

Mr. Sutto found that there are a number of things people can do, such as voting for propositions and elected officials who aim to improve the situation and pushing for funding.

He mentioned, “It means a lot to say hello to someone and acknowledge their presence,” which could be done by simply talking to them and understanding their situation. He added, “If you have the time or the means to volunteer, that’s also really good.”

He said that, if for some reason there’s an altercation, think before calling the cops; think of other options. “At the end of the day, everyone living on the streets is a person,” he said, adding that “living on the street is criminalized; the homeless are often ticketed and arrested,” which often becomes a “never-ending cycle of law.”

Bringing more attention to the growing problem, contributing to different causes and providing simple solutions can help in gradually improving the conditions on the streets of San Francisco.

Economic development is important, but focusing solely on innovation causes ignorance in a problem that will continue to grow.

What are the factors that have contributed to this problem?

According to CITYLAB, the former mayor of San Francisco left a legacy of economic development, but his legacy of liberalism included “fraught compromises with the tech industry.”

Though the former mayor Ed Lee did plan to spend $300 million on the homeless before the 2017 winter, he passed away during the process of working toward improving conditions on the streets. The mayor who is currently in office, Landon Breed, took over this mission by making space in homeless shelters in order to create stable and safe living conditions. As stated by the San Francisco Chronicle, Mayor Breed is currently making efforts to decrease homeless rates in the Bay Area. 

A CITYLAB article mentions that enforcing the tax exemption on tech companies such as Twitter and Facebook, in order to persuade them to grow their businesses in San Francisco, has greatly impacted the Bay Area. The Payroll Expense Tax Exclusion helped increase the number of jobs in San Francisco to over 600,000, growing by 25,000 a year during Mayor Lee’s tenure, and decrease unemployment to 3.6 percent. However, some argue that the amount of money that could have been collected from taxes might have benefited efforts to stop the growing rate of homelessness in the Bay Area.

There are a multitude of the causes for homelessness. Homelessness cannot be categorized as a whole; there are many factors that contribute to problem. Throughout the years, there has been more awareness about the growing epidemic.

As an ending thought, Mr. Sutto said, “Personally, I think that those who have the most in our society have a kind of responsibility to give back.”

Featured image (at the top of this post): “Our evening syringe exchange always includes lots of hugs.” PHOTO CREDIT: Homeless Youth Alliance Twitter account

Related:

Booming Silicon Valley confronts cold reality of homelessness

Youth writes about the ignored side of the homeless population

Teen uses voice to amend legislation

Youth writes about the ignored side of the homeless population

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By Giselle Alejo, Judy Ly, Jeana Rose Meneses and Pauline Valezquez

Staff Writers

Many of us are guilty of making assumptions about people before taking the time to get to know them; however, Isabella Zou, a senior at Westlake High School in Austin works to enlighten her community about the real people of the homeless community.

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Isabella Zou, 17-years- old, senior at Westlake High School.

She described the overarching stereotype we all seem to buy into: “We often just lump homelessness into one category of people that are all just very similar, but I’ve learned that people are very diverse, and the one thing they do share is the status of homelessness.”

The way that Zou battles this cliche is through her website, Austin Street Humans. This blog gives the homeless population a voice by sharing their stories and providing insight into a community that has been pushed to the side.

The blog is comprised of numerous different articles, each one focusing on a member of the homeless community about their personal story. Zou described the process in which she gets each interview: “We go to community centers where the homeless people gather and are given services in Austin and we sit down with people and have long conversations, just about their life path and how they became homeless, but also just about what their childhood was like and what their future prospects are.”

When asked about why she started her website, Zou replied with, “My life was being changed by hearing these stories, and like that effect could be multiplied if we put it on an online space.”  She later commented in the interview, “The overall goal is to just bring the stories of people experiencing this condition to light and I think the more broadly and deeply we can do that the better.”

She further voiced her motives behind the blog by saying, “I want to prove that homelessness is not always a choice.”

She elaborated on what the stereotype of homelessness being a choice means in our society by giving a personal example about her parent’s original views on the topic. As background Zoe mentioned that her parents were first-generation immigrants and came to America with practically nothing. She relayed her parents point saying, “They were like: it is a choice because they had experience with what it means to build yourself up from nothing; like they had nothing and they could make themselves better from nothing.”

Although her parents might have believed this to be true prior to Zou’s personal work with the homeless community, her mom is now a supporter of her work and leaves frequent, encouraging Facebook comments on her Facebook page that are dedicated to her work.

Her mom is an example of why she started the blog: to open people’s eyes to the reality of the homeless community’s situation.  In light of this realization, she commented, “I guess this work can make a difference.”

Through her interviews, Zou has been able to get to know those she talks to as human beings rather than just members of the homeless community. When asked what she tries to do with each interview she answered, “I always try to find the things that they’re interested in because every person has things that they lean towards … bring[ing] those things to light kind of helps humanize them and kind of make them seem more like people.”

Zou shared an anecdote of a person named Michael who took a remarkable interest in literature and NPR. Zou reminisced about her relationship with Michael by saying, “He got rid of any stereotype that I had of homeless people being not smart.” She shared Michael’s story by telling us his life “involves a lot of tragedies, one after the other.”

Zou commented on his situation by saying,“With him it is just a constant battle with himself, like his drug habit, and for him to make the choices that make it easier for him to make good choices.”

After being sent to jail for 12 years, Michael decided that he wanted to turn his life around and made the decision to get his GED and license to become a truck driver. Zou concluded her thought by saying, “It’s encouraging to me because that’s something that I relate to a lot, like the difficulty of making choices sometimes and the fact that once you made enough of them they sort of like start to build up into the base that can make it easier for you to keep making the same kind of choices.”

In short, Zou made the connection that even though both her and Michael are in two completely different times in their lives, at the root of it, Michael is just another human being that faces the same struggles that she does.

You can read Michael’s story here.

Another personal story that Zou shared was about a man she met on three different occasions named Nawin. Nawin’s story begins after he divorced his wife and a couple years later moved to America. He started out in Mayland where he worked with gas and sent what little money he could back to Nepal for his kids. Finally, he moved to Austin where he hoped to find better job opportunities. This is where his wallet went missing which meant his green card, Social Security, money, ID were all gone. This is what ultimately led Nawin to be homeless.

Zou admitted that Nawin opened her eyes about, “our community’s apathy about the homeless community and also whether the things that I’m doing to try and combat that apathy and raise awareness are actually effective.”

Unfortunately, Nawin passed away last May.  

“Incidentally his death is what sort of convinced me that there is some bear to what I’m doing because after he passed away, I actually found out about it from his sister, …. “ she commented.

The story goes as the following: A couple days later following his death, Nawin’s sister who lives in Nepal, got in contact with Zou after searching up her brother’s name.  “She was asking me whether I had any pictures of him and I didn’t have any pictures but I did

Source: Austin Street Humans

have the audio recording of our conversation,” Zou said.  “And so I was able to give that to her and she was like ‘It is so comforting to be able to hear his voice because I hadn’t seen him since he left for America which was years ago.’”  

This moment shared between Nawin’s sister and Zou made her realize, “Getting people’s stories out there not only helps the public but also might help the people that love that person.”

You can read Nawin’s story from Zou’s blog here.

Later, Zou defined the word “homeless” as, “The lack of place where you have the assurance that there are people that will care for you and accept you.” She furthered this definition by alluding to the magazine, “Household Words” by Barbara Kingsolver and reiterates, “Home is a place where when you have to go there, they have to take you in.” So, by extension, “Homelessness to me is just the lack of that.”

Following that, Zou found similarities in the people she interviewed and said, “One common theme is just something that went wrong in their family, whether that be in their childhood or even later on.”

She continued this sentiment by adding on, “I think that this is a very potent thing to see because our families are so vital in shaping the people that we become and even if your not homeless from a young age, if you’re exposed to abuse and … just a lack of basic care from that young then it can affect the way you see the world for the rest of your life.”

She continued this note by talking about how we, as a society, could work to help the homeless by arguing, “Instead of treating homelessness as one big problem that needs one big solution, it is like a case by case kind of thing.”

Furthering the statement she explained, “Some people … all they need is like a caseworker to help them reapply for their ID and then somebody else might need like a lot more specialized care, like mental health care or otherwise.”

Zou added that, “For people who aren’t homeless…we have arguably more choices than those who start out with less and I think that ultimately the responsibility that we have is to use the amount of choice that we have access to …. to help those who are less lucky be able to make choices anyway” when asked who she believes should be the people to help those in need.

In regards to her aspirations and hopes for the future, she replied with wanting to expand Austin Street Humans with more staff writers and her nonprofit called After Hello.  “Like one of [the programs in progress] is basically the Austin Street Humans work but minus the writing.  And so you go there, it’s like a safe environment

MePhillip

To the right of Isabella is Phillip, one of her friends who was homeless when she first met him.

where your parents can feel safe to send you.   And like you have conversations with people,” said Zou.  This would allow people to be in a safe, controlled environment and be able to conversate and connect with the homeless population.  

Zou also mentioned hosting sock drives, where they would collect socks at different schools and also letters that the students would write to the homeless population with thoughtful notes of endearment attached that would be delivered to a number of shelters.

As for other young people who want to make a difference in their community, Zou readily said, “It’s possible to do seemingly radical things at a young age.” She finished this thought by saying, “I don’t think that most adults are able to gain an audience that easily, so definitely age, instead of being a detriment, it can actually be an asset as you try to build connections because people are always very encouraged that youth care about things.”

Zou’s final piece of advice was, “Start doing it now.”

Related:

San Francisco struggles to serve the homeless in the Bay Area

Booming Silicon Valley confronts cold reality of homelessness

Teen uses voice to amend legislation

Teen uses voice to amend legislation

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By Giselle Alejo, Judy Ly,  Jeana Rose Meneses and Pauline Velazquez

Staff Writers

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Michael Tracy, senior at Advanced Technology Academy

Contrary to the popular belief that teenagers are unmotivated to help people other than themselves, Michael Tracy is living proof that teens do care. Tracy, a senior at Advanced Technology Academy in Las Vegas, has been developing strategies that will help positively impact the lives of a group targeted by violence.  

Tracy is currently in the process of trying to pass legislation in Nevada that would officially classify the homeless population as a minority group. The new law would officially categorize crimes against the homeless community as hate crimes.

Since the homeless community is so prevalent in Las Vegas, this law would affect a number of people. In fact, as stated by an article found in Las Vegas Now, for every 10,000 people in Las Vegas, 50 of them are homeless. This makes Las Vegas the fourth highest ranked city in the United States in terms of their homeless population.

Tracy recognized that Nevada’s current hate crime laws are perfectly adequate in terms of providing much-needed protection for a variety of different groups like the LGBT community and racial minorities, but expressed his discontent with their lack of support for the homeless and explained, “I think that they’re missing something when they don’t protect homeless people.”

When asked about his predictions for the effect of his bill if it is passed, and how this will impact not only the homeless community but also those of a higher privilege he clarified that “Hate crime laws aren’t meant to eradicate hate, that’s just not going to happen.

This hashtag is used to support tolerance.  PHOTO CREDIT: Wikimedia Commons

There’s no way for a law or a piece of paper to just completely abolish hatred.” He continued to explain that although hate will still very much be an issue, the importance of his bill still stands as he concluded: “It’s symbolic for the people in that group, that demographic, and the people outside that demographic to know that it’s become a problem.”

Although Tracy has a heart for the homeless community now, he touched on how he, and many others, were not aware of the how serious the issues surrounding the homeless community are. In fact, he mentioned that prior to starting his legislative journey he hadn’t given much thought to the homeless at all.

“I pretty much thought about them like any other normal teenager would, being that I didn’t think much of them,” he said, adding: “They weren’t really a part of my life, I didn’t have to encounter them very often, but I tried to help out when I could. To me, they were just another people.”   

Although Tracy admitted to not always being as empathetic or aware of the situation as he currently is, after his meeting with “the masked man” that he referenced in his essay and doing a bit of research on the forgotten group, he had a drastic shift in perspective. He proudly exclaimed, “Well, I really humanized them; my research with them, it made realize that what happened to them really isn’t necessarily their fault, and I really began to be more sympathetic to their plight.”

Using his own personal experiences as an ideal example of a positive change in the right direction, Tracy hopes that through his legislation more people will be able to see that homeless people are just that: people. He explained that just simply talking to them and making the effort to get to know them as human beings can change people’s perspective on the community.

Tracy identified the stigma and problem, not as a form of dislike, but rather fear. He began this argument when he explained that, “There’s not much of a difference between us and them, and the fact that we see it as an ‘us’ or ‘them’ is part of the reason that we tend to fear and hate the homeless people, because somewhere within our subconscious, in the back or our minds, we have this inherent fear that we could become like them.”

Tracy further illustrated his claim by adding that homeless people are people just like we are, and one day the tables might turn, and we could find ourselves in their position. He confidently stated, “The only difference between us and them is a few bad decisions or bad luck.”

Not only are we neglecting an entire community of people because we are scared to be in their shoes, but Tracy went deeper and shared his suspicions that another reason we push these people to the back of our minds is that we are ashamed to admit that we might just have been wrong about them this whole time. “When we see them it’s like they’re holding up a mirror and reflecting back on us that A) as society we haven’t done enough for them and B) we could be them not getting enough done for us,” he said.

Even though currently we may not be doing enough to help the homeless population, Tracy believes that if we start humanizing them and seeing “them” as part of “us” then we could make a real impact on a number of lives.

This issue, however, won’t be solved overnight and he believes that this problem involves all of us, no matter our own current social standing. Tracy expressed this belief by

emphasizing, “We’re all connected to each other, there’s a web of interconnectedness that a lot of us seem to take advantage of or just overlook. And if you consider how their lives affect our lives, then you realize that there is an obligation to help those people.”

Furthering his argument, Tracy acknowledged the fact that while the government is split into two main political parties and these parties usually tend to take two completely different stances on important issues, this is not the case in regards to his bill. He defended his bill by saying, “It affects all of us whether we are Democrat or Republican.”

Continually, when asked what congressional representative he wants to sponsor his bill, Tracy quickly responded with, “It’s a nonpartisan bill so it doesn’t matter what side of

These are the known symbols that represent the two major political parties: donkeys for Democrats and elephants for Republicans. PHOTO CREDIT: Flickr

the line they fall on. The homeless problem is more of a human problem than a partisan problem, so just someone that has that sympathy for the homeless.”

 

Tracy also acknowledged the fact that “there is a lot of support for people who are more needy than others.” However, he finished this thought by saying, “There’s a lot of people going out there to try to help, but I don’t think it’s ever enough.”

His reasoning behind this is: “Our work is never done because there will always be dissenters, I don’t think it’s ever going to be something that we can just say we’re done – we’re finished.”

When asked how the adults in his life reacted to his interest in this subject and his bill, Tracy responded with how fortunate he was to have a support system by his side but added that “It’s my project and that is sort of how they’ve handled it. If I can get it done they’ll support it, but they’re not going to get it done for me.”

This being said, he believes that the youth is capable of using their voice to make a difference and when asked what advice he has for aspiring young leaders he replied with, “If you have a purpose and you have a passion and you’re driven to do something, everything is clear.” He elaborated by mentioning that if you also have a skill or talent, like writing or videography, then that is a tool that should be used for your advocacy to help other people.

In order to solidify his point even further, Tracy brought up a story that he was told when he younger which brings up the idea that if we continue to wait for others to make the change that we want to see then it will never happen. If we want to change something, then it is up to us to make it happen and age has nothing to do with it. The story itself is about how when we are small children we are given a box crayons and are asked to color outside the lines in order to express ourselves. As we get older though, our crayons get taken away from us and we’re asked to stay inside the lines and color the picture already created for us. He concludes the story with another piece of advice saying, “So I think it is time to let that little kid out and do what it is you think you need to do.

Related:

San Francisco struggles to serve the homeless in the Bay Area

Booming Silicon Valley confronts cold reality of homelessness

Youth writes about the ignored side of the homeless population

Booming Silicon Valley confronts cold reality of homelessness

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By Giselle Alejo, Michonni Hughes, Judy Ly, Jeana Rose Meneses and Pauline Velazquez

Staff Writers

Shantel Montoya, a rapid rehousing case manager at HomeFirst, reminisced fondly on the time she reached out to a woman who was resistant of getting assistance from any services. While she tried endlessly to gain the woman’s trust, she was met time and time again with hesitation. Instead of giving up though, she found other ways to try to get this woman to open up.  She discovered the woman likes coffee in the morning.

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Shantel Montoya, a rapid rehousing case manager at HomeFirst

With this in mind, Ms. Montoya bought her hot coffee, using the McDonald’s $1 coffee deal, every morning in hopes of gaining a trusting relationship. After several cups of the warming beverage, the woman complied in getting and seeking shelter alongside the help of Ms. Montoya.

“Sometimes it’s just about that. It’s gaining their trust and letting them know that you care. So building that relationship with them. Sometimes, with like [the homeless woman], I had to go out there — sometimes in the morning — and talk to her and she became willing to come in for services, check out the shelters, willing to go to the other places like Sacred Heart for other resources,” Ms. Montoya said.

Ms. Montoya has been helping the homeless population of San Jose. This includes finding landlords who are willing to rent out spaces for clients and making payment plans. Depending on the status of the client and their needs, HomeFirst can pay up to nine months rent and two years of support. Additionally, they give help in overcoming addictions, finding sources of food, and locating job opportunities. From there, Ms. Montoya and the HomeFirst team finds the needs of the client and tackles them together.

When asked about his reaction to the huge population of the homeless community, Program Coordinator at HomeFirst Sani Momoh exclaimed, “I didn’t know there was a high amount of homelessness in Santa Clara County, especially on behalf of Silicon Valley.”

The current grad student, who is working on getting his masters in social work, went on to explain, “Who would ever think that an environment like 

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Sani Momoh, a program coordinator at HomeFirst

this or a community like this, that is full of technology, still has a high amount of homelessness? If you go around you see Google and Facebook and all these big companies making communities look good, but again there are still problems of homelessness that people aren’t talking about.” 

To elaborate on Mr. Momoh’s comment on the high number of homeless people in Silicon Valley, a study by Harvard University and the AARP stated, “587 of the 7,394 homeless counted in Santa Clara County this year, 43 percent were over 51 years old compared — a 23 percent increase since 2015. It’s a trend that’s occurring across the country as Baby Boomers, particularly those born between 1955 and 1965, grow old.”

It’s not just adults who are struggling, but also the youth.  A report by the Mercury News showed the growth rate of the youth homeless population in San Jose: “a 185 percent increase over 2015 in the number of people under age 25 who are homeless, nearly double the previous high set in 2011. People under 25 now make up more than one-third of the overall homeless population.”

These numbers are so large for multiple reasons. According to Mr. Momoh, one reason is that people fall through the cracks in our society. He stated, “In grad school I am writing a paper on homelessness among families and children, and one of the reasons that I include in my paper is capitalism.  Again, people are really into making profit and making money than actually paying attention to things that actually affect individuals and affect society … but not everyone will see that as a reason.”

A statistic from the organization Democratic Socialists of America reads, “… poverty under capitalism is largely maintained by a skewed distribution of wealth and services, not by lack of a work ethic.”

Another reason that Mr. Momoh identified for the large number of people without homes is the way the government decides to spend money. He stated, “If you look at it right now, the federal government is spending way more money in defense and military action in other countries around the world, millions … versus homelessness and poverty, a single mother, a child or at-risk youths. So if you ask me, why aren’t we spending those monies in social work, social development instead of spending all these billions and billions of dollars in getting military equipment and invading countries?”

He continued to talk about the stereotypes that the homeless community face from an outside perspective by explaining, “Definitely a lot of stereotypes about homeless individuals … according to the conflict theory, which suggest homeless individuals are seen as lazy, and seen as … lacking motivation to get a better life.  So that’s a stereotype, and when you see a homeless man around the corner of a sidewalk, you’re not thinking about how this society is affecting that individual, but what you’re thinking about is ‘this person is too lazy to get a job or get a place?’”

Although the large number of people looking for help can be intimidating, HomeFirst does what it can to help folks when they come to them, and they are not the only organization that works to eradicate homelessness in our community. While working downtown, we found a number of different businesses, ranging from Starbucks to the Martin Luther King Jr. library, also doing their part to lend a hand to people in need.

When walking into Starbucks, one of the organizations that do what they can to help, we were welcomed by the warm air and inviting scent of espresso. When we asked Brandon Tiretta, a Starbucks barista, how he would describe the community of downtown San Jose he said,“Underprivileged community if I do say so. On a real note, underprivileged and a less appreciated community and open for potential.”

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Brandon Tierrita, a local Starbucks barista in Downtown San Jose

Mr. Tierrita furthered his description of the community and what he sees by saying, “When you turn this corner you can see tens of thousands of homeless people, and honestly that is probably the worse. You see like hundreds of homeless people, with no homes, sleeping on the corners and girls looking like you, and you, and you, coming to me with blankets.”

Finally, Mr. Tierrita explained what Starbucks does to help the people he sees on the street by saying, “Whenever they need food we have free water …when we have extra food we give it to the homeless whenever we can.”

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Jeff Frank, a university access service coordinator at the MLK library

Another organization that reaches out to the homeless community is the SJSU Public Library System. Jeff Frank, a university access service coordinator at the library, commented on the workings of the library’s services.  Mr. Frank said that there is a career center on the third floor of the MLK library. This career center does what they can by offering a job search program and hiring people to work with others looking for a job one-on-one.

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Phil Reyes, a former war veteran

Phil Reyes, who is a Vietnam War veteran and was homeless himself for some time, commented on the fact that there may be services out there for people, but they may not be aware they can get help. Mr. Reyes states, “A lot of them can get help but they don’t realize it. They don’t understand the policy – like veterans like us, we get compensation from the Vietnam War…” He continued, “It’s just so sad to see them laying there. It’s not that it ruins the community, but it ruins people’s lives.”

In contrast to the facilities that are trying to help when they can or to create programs, there are definitely others that recognize the seriousness of the situation but do not do much to provide support.

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Joanna, a Safeway checker in downtown San Jose.

When asked what Safeway, a popular grocery store placed in the center of downtown San Jose, has done to help the otherwise forgotten homeless community, a checker at the store who asked to be identified only by her first name of Joanna said, “It’s really hard to help them, but they do come in here and they do shop for their food and what they need.” In short, as of this moment Safeway is not doing much to help the homeless community other than offer groceries when they find the money to buy food themselves.

Further in the interview, Joanna commented about the customer’s reactions when the homeless do make their way into the store saying, “Some people feel uncomfortable. Some people, if they need help and they see it, that they’re really trying to buy food, they’ll lend a hand or help them out with what they need.” She elaborated on her answer by saying, “It depends on how people are, I guess.”

For those concerned with the issue of the underrepresented homeless community, Mr. Momoh enthusiastically gave examples of what we as individuals can do by saying, “Just keep doing more interviews and spreading the word on homelessness and encouraging people to help … encourage senators or congress to increase more funding for homeless population and speak up for this population. Advocate for them and let them know what is going on.”

Here is a Story Map of all the places discussed in the above column.

Related:

San Francisco struggles to serve the homeless in the Bay Area

Youth writes about the ignored side of the homeless population

Teen uses voice to amend legislation