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City Changes Policy on Homeless Camps

A slap shot from HP Pavilion, through Guadalupe Park and into the neighboring creek bed, a rooster makes its home. He lives among shopping carts, deflated tire tubes and toilet paper rolls, empty beer cans and coolers, a Negro Modelo sign lodged in the fresh mud and a half-dozen people who spend their nights sleeping in tents. Karen Ellfson is one of these people. She lives here with her husband. At 30 years old, a month shy of her next birthday, the Morgan Hill native knows that in two weeks she’ll need to find a new home. She’s one of several dozen homeless people with targets on their backs.

Day One at End Homelessness Conference

On day one at The National Alliance to End Homelessness conference on youth and family homelessness, my enthusiasm started to wane after eight hours of meetings. One thing is clear, though: Nobody really knows how many homeless youth there are in the country, but we can’t wait around for the research before doing something about the problem.

Ending Youth and Family Homelessness

Today I am headed to Los Angeles to attend a national conference focused on ending youth and family homelessness by 2020. The National Alliance to End Homelessness has worked hard to draw attention to not only ending chronic homelessness, but addressing the different approaches in working with youth and families.

Field Trips for Homeless Youth?

Last week, during a tour of our downtown Drop-In Center for homeless youth, a donor watched as all our kids piled into a van for a trip to the beach. The donor questioned why we would take youth on an outing, rather than focus on the immediate needs of housing, employment, and education. The tone of the question said more than the words – the donor thought it was frivolous. It occurred to me that he may not be the only one who feels this way. 

Homeless Camps Temporarily Abandoned

Lately the City of San Jose’s Falcon Cam is a bust. There’s no sign of Clara and Carlos, the peregrine falcons that have been nesting on the 18th floor of City Hall.  With the nesting box empty, Fly headed over to Guadalupe River Park & Gardens last Saturday and joined twenty birders for an early morning bird walk. The Santa Clara Valley Audubon Society’s Janna Pauser, noting that migrating birds use the river for a flyway,  found us a red tailed hawk, hooded mergansers, black phoebes, yellow rumped warblers, flickers and finches galore, as well as a rare raptor known as a merlin, falco columbarius. Missing were the homeless sedentarius, a species that often can be found encamped on this three-mile ribbon of green running from downtown San Jose to Alviso.  None were seen because of the San Jose Police Department and Santa Clara Valley Water Districts’ Feb. 26 sweep.

Downtown Homeless Services Under Attack

When I graduated from San Jose State University in 1995, I had a list of friends that were homeless.  I often wondered if the homeless community, who lived in the bushes and ate out of garbage cans, would ever be relieved from the misery of asking a guy half their age for a quarter or what was left of the overpriced sandwich I was eating on my break from the Spartan Pub.  Being a veteran, I was amazed at how many of the handouts I gave went to those with military records. Sadly, some of the same people who used to hit me up for change and food are still circulating in the downtown area over a decade later.