Comfort for those stranded in the cold

Last Wednesday, Gilroyan Diana Clinton got to spend her fifty-eighth birthday in from the cold.
Homeless for the last eight years, Clinton’s special day coincided with opening night of the cold weather shelter at the Gilroy National Guard Armory, where she was one of 45 people to check-in for the night. This winter, the armory will have emergency shelter for up to 130.
“You try to insulate your tent as best you can and put palates underneath, but it’s still cold,” said Clinton earlier that Wednesday morning at the Compassion Center, which operates a morning warming center for the homeless in Gilroy in the industrial area north of town at 370 Tomkins Court.
Many of the individuals who will sleep on the black roll out mats at the armory, will make their way to the Compassion Center for a safe place to congregate each morning after the shelter closes its doors promptly at 6 a.m.
Taking sips from her cup of coffee, the steam swirling in front of her heavily lined face, Clinton calls the Compassion Center a “life saver.”
“Being a woman out there is scary,” said Clinton, who was made homeless after a series of tragic events: an apartment fire, a disabled husband and a spiraling lack of finances. “You stay close to people you know and trust, don’t go out at night and do as much as you can during the day.”
The armory’s first night came in the middle of an inclement weather episode declaration for south county – Gilroy, San Martin and Morgan Hill – the overnight near freezing temperatures posing a critical hazard to the unsheltered.
The declaration required that additional beds be made available at the the Gilroy shelter for the duration of the warning, starting Monday, Nov. 28, when the notice was sent out by the Santa Clara Office of Supportive Housing and ending at the earliest Dec. 3rd.
At last count in 2015, there were 439 homeless residents in Gilroy, up from 379 two years earlier.
The inclement weather declaration is one of the only times drop-ins are allowed at the armory this winter, the first year of the shelter’s new referral-only policy. Adopted to ensure people are housed near where they live, work, go to school or have connections, it also mirrors intake at the Sunnyvale County Winter Shelter on Hamlin Court. The Boccardo Reception Center (BRC) in San Jose allows some drop-ins.
“We wanted to make sure that folks in this part of the county have a bed there and we are not getting an influx of people from San Jose who are lining up at 1 o’clock in the afternoon, hanging out in front of the armory,” said Dee Pearse, case manager at the Compassion Center, which along with Gilroy’s St. Joseph’s Family Center identified the people that will be housed at the armory and family shelter at the Ochoa labor camp on the outskirts of town.
While the policy ensures local folks get local beds, that leaves only a very small number of spaces left for drop-ins in the county, leaving some folks out in the cold.
“I would like to see South County invested in a permanent location for us to work at, with laundry facilities, where people know where we are always going to be,” said Andrea Urton, chief executive officer of HomeFirst, which operates all three county emergency shelters.
Urton said while there is currently a “perfect storm” of support for addressing homelessness in the region, recently manifested in the passage of Measure A, which will create new affordable housing in the county, the need for emergency shelter will remain.
“That’s going to create 5000 units of affordable and low income housing, many for our homeless clients,” said Urton, who was homeless herself for a period of time when she was a teenager. “Things are starting to happen, but is it enough? No.  I believe that permanent housing is the solution, but people need a stopgap now and can’t wait six years for permanent housing to be built. They are cold, hungry and they die, it’s just wrong.”
Funded by a grant from the county, and led by the St. Joseph’s Family Center, the Ochoa migrant labor camp will, for the first time in eight years, house homeless families for the winter, when the camp is usually shuttered. The migrant families live there during the April-October growing season.
The thirty-five families will occupy just one section of the tree lined and quiet housing development, in two and three bedroom units, complete with kitchen and bathroom, until March 31. Move-ins are taking place this week.
Faced with high rents and low wages, Pearse said she had “never seen as many [homeless] families as I have this year.”
All the families at the camp have children, some of whom attend school at Gilroy Unified School District, which has about 100 homeless students currently enrolled.
District employees Navdeep Dhillon and Sylvia Solis help families with transportation, school supplies and food pantry information, under the 1987 federal McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act.
The Act ensures that children who are considered homeless or in transition have the same educational rights and protection as any other school children.
“Our families live in a variety of locations and have been displaced either because of emergency situations or on-going need,” said Dhillon. “Examples of families that qualify for McKinney-Vento are families that live in shelters, hotels, motels, cars, campgrounds, on the street or in need of emergency housing.”
One of the families moving into the Ochoa camp this winter had been living in their car. Monica Celis one of three case managers at St. Joseph’s, has been working with the family, a mother and father with two teenagers. “We tend to worry about the families of smaller children, but smaller children sometimes are not aware of what is going on as long as they are with mommy and daddy. The older ones, it impacts their self-esteem.”
On move-in day, families receive a housewarming basket filled with some of the basics they need to get started with their new life.
“They get eggs, bread, cleaning supplies, sheets, comforters, kitchen utensils, towels and bedding,” said case manager, Sandra Garcia Lopez, as she toured the small houses as they were getting the final touches by maintenance workers. “We’re giving them a pretty good head start.”
Celis agreed. “The families are very grateful that we are giving them this opportunity and for us it is really rewarding to see how happy they are; we hope that over these four months they will be able to transition from here to permanent housing.”
“We will be doing our best to help families stabilize, and focus on individual case plans to help them become more self-sufficient, and maybe move some into permanent housing,” said David Cox, St. Joseph’s executive director.  “The time frame is tight, and it will be challenging, especially this first year.”
The Gilroy Armory, St. Joseph’s Family Center and Compassion Center gladly accept donations. For more information go to http://www.homefirstscc.org/donate-today/ and http://stjosephsgilroy.org/get-involved/ways-to-get-involved/ and https://gilroycompassioncenter.blogspot.com/p/donate.html