Lived experience: Local GOP candidate digs into homelessness realities
Photo by Thayne Tuason, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Carol Pefley, candidate for CA 28 State Assembly, gets to know a homeless student at SJ City College, and discovers lots of nuance in the homelessness experience in Silicon Valley.
Jakob is a 21 year old student at San Jose City College majoring in Political Science with emphasis on law and public policy in society. Jakob contacted me because he wanted to become a volunteer for the Republican Party so I invited him to an event and had the pleasure of meeting him in person. So when I asked him where he lived so I could place him in the correct district group, I was surprised to find out that Jakob is homeless and has been living at Home First in the Boccaro Reception Center ( BCR), Santa Clara County’s largest shelter for the homeless.
Jakob came to San Jose from the Central Valley to participate in the Job Corp program which provides free education and job training to low income youth . Upon arriving in San Jose, he rented a room in a home, enrolled in City college and got a part time job. After several months, he was told to move so a relative could occupy the room he was renting. Jakob found that it was very difficult to find another place to live. His choices were limited because he does not have a car and needs to live near public transportation in order to continue work and school. He also had no money saved as all of the money he earned went to pay for housing, meals, transportation and school supplies. Unable to find a place to live, Jakob ended up homeless and eventually landed at BCR.
Different surveys show different statistics on the percentage of homeless that are regularly using drugs ranging from 37% to 65%. I asked Jakob what his experience was at the BCR and he thinks that figure is much higher with about 75% of the people he sees at the shelter on alcohol or drugs regularly. The rest of the residents are much older people that cannot afford a permanent place to live and there is a very small percentage of people like him, who are using the shelter as a temporary solution while they work, get an education and try to save enough money for permanent housing. Jakob feels that the 75% that are using drugs should be forced into treatment. “They come in drunk and high, urinating on beds, refusing showers and smoking drugs in the bathrooms”. He feels that they are using the shelter to continue down the same path rather then to seek treatment and recovery. A van comes by weekly providing clean needles and pipes so they can continue their drug use safely. While praising Home First for the services they offer to people that are struggling for a better life, Jakob sees this as contributing to the problem and not the solution.
Read the whole thing here.
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