It had to be one of the worst days of his life. Eleven years
ago, Jason Wilson was homeless in Hollister. On one particularly
bad night following a methamphetamine binge, he broke into a
storage shed and wrapped himself in insulation material to keep
warm.
It had to be one of the worst days of his life. Eleven years ago, Jason Wilson was homeless in Hollister. On one particularly bad night following a methamphetamine binge, he broke into a storage shed and wrapped himself in insulation material to keep warm.
“I was dirty, smelly, itchy – I felt like I just wanted to die right now,” Wilson said.
It might have been a low point, but it was also a turning point, he said.
Soon after that night, Wilson talked to his cousin, who recommended Victory Outreach’s recovery home in Gilroy. Today, Wilson heads up that home as Victory Outreach’s associate pastor, reaching out to local residents who find themselves in dire straits with a criminal past.
Wilson also serves on the city’s gang task force board, which supports the church’s annual community Easter egg hunt among and other local projects.
Several Gilroy police say they have noticed rising gang involvement and crime in general recently, in part because of economic challenges coupled with a smaller police presence in town. But the City of Gilroy, churches and various other community groups are doing what they can to intervene and get residents out of gangs, often joining together to fight those forces.
Walking the walk
Victory Outreach runs a slew of programs, including a recovery home for men who suffer from drug and alcohol addictions, several of whom are homeless or are involved in gangs.
Wilson, who oversees the recovery home program, knows that it can change lives, as he went through the program himself after being addicted to drugs and in and out of prison. Wilson, who grew up in an abusive home, started drinking in elementary school while growing up in Aromas and Prunedale. His journey into addiction only spiraled downward from there, as he became addicted to meth and crack cocaine.
Although Wilson was not wild about going to the recovery home at first, having blamed God for a rather difficult childhood, he decided to anyway out of desperation.
“When I first came in, I felt so ashamed of myself,” Wilson said. “People were giving me free food and clothes, and it made me feel so humbled and so unworthy. At the same time, I embraced it because I needed that.”
Wilson, thinking of those who he had hurt, broke down weeping during the home’s prayer time one evening, he said. That was the night he accepted Christ into his life, he said. Life has had its challenges since then, but today he is active full-time in the ministry and married to Yolanda Wilson, daughter of Victory Outreach pastor Louis Herrera.
“I know that if (the program) worked for me – and I’m a knucklehead – then it can work for anybody,” Wilson said with a laugh.
Tough love
Thousands of people have gone through the home over the years. No payment is necessary to enter the program, Wilson said. The one requirement is that people come in with a willingness to change.
He noted that sometimes Norteños and Sureños are both in the recovery house at the same time, and occasionally gang signs are exchanged, but all housemates are made aware of the ground rules.
“One thing we have to have in the home is zero-tolerance,” Wilson said. “If you throw a swing, you’re gone.”
About 20 percent to 25 percent of the people in the house end up turning their lives around, Wilson said. In the past, that percentage was quite a bit lower, he said.
“If people really want to change, they’re going to change,” he said. “If people give themselves to the program, I guarantee they will be changed individuals.”
Wilson notes that several ex-gang leaders are now established within Victory Outreach’s ministry, and some former prostitutes attend as well.
Residents at the recovery home must go through a tightly regimented program, including days of Bible study, prayer services and Alcoholics and Narcotics Anonymous meetings. They also have different jobs, such as security at football games and yard cleanup.
Victory Outreach also has a urine testing center for the state Department of Social Services, and judges can recommend its recovery center as a program for inmates in lieu of jail time.
The church’s youth group includes several youths who have grown up in the gang lifestyle as well as members who grew up in church.
The city, the Gilroy Exchange Club, Mexican American Community Services Agency and various local businesses have helped with its Easter egg hunt. In addition, Trader Joe’s donates food for the home.
Living proof
City Recreation Leader Anthony Bravo does not merely believe in Gilroy’s youth center program because he has seen lives changed for the better. He doesn’t need to – he’s living proof.
Growing up, the 21-year-old Gilroy native regularly attended the youth center with his cousins when it was located on Railroad Street.
He noted that he and his cousins, who he described “as poor as poor could be,” found the gang lifestyle as potentially attractive. However, the caring youth leaders and sports programs offered at the youth center made a big difference.
“It took a big toll on us,” Bravo said. “They played sports with us, and we kind of found our way out.”
Gilroy’s recreation department is making a difference through its youth center program, which now operates at San Ysidro Park in east Gilroy. Greg Garcia, recreation coordinator for the city’s youth center program, noted that most participants either have friends or family members who are involved in gangs.
“We could point out a few participants that don’t have gang relations,” Garcia said.
However, the youth center is a haven from that life, allowing students to get involved in activities such as handball and basketball or indoor recreational activities such as pool and foosball.
“It’s a place where they don’t have to ‘be hard,'” Garcia said.
The program offers a variety of recreational activities Monday through Thursday as well as a period in which students are to do their homework, Bravo said. Most students who attend are from nearby neighborhoods, he said. Although they come from a variety of backgrounds, the children often have suffered abuse or parental neglect or have parents who are in prison.
“We’ve seen it all,” Bravo said.
Poor as a potato chip sandwich
Bravo himself recalls the dramatic impact the program had on him and his cousins, who lived in impoverished conditions. His cousins used to live near the former youth center building, and he said he would hang out with them all of the time.
“I thought a (potato) chip sandwich was cool,” Bravo said. “Later, I realized that the only thing (my cousins’ family) had in their house was bread and chips.”
The basketball skills he developed through the program eventually led him to go to Paris, France through the People-to-People Sports Ambassadors program.
Today, both Bravo and fellow recreation leader and former youth center attendee Adriana Copado are preparing to head to San Jose State University this fall.
The city youth program started in 1994, though it has only operated out of San Ysidro Park since this past summer. Prior to that, the center temporarily operated out of Gilroy’s Senior Center after the former youth center building on Railroad Street had to be vacated because it was deemed unsafe in the event of an earthquake.
Bravo said the program has seen a huge boost in attendance since moving to the park, with nearly 100 children, ages 6 to 17, showing up each day in the summer. An average of about 30 children show up each day during the school year. That’s a marked increase from the four children who showed up at the senior center each day.
More than a rec center
In addition to its regular programs, the youth center provides lots of opportunities that participants normally would not have, such as outings at amusement parks, a camping trip and a deep-sea fishing venture.
“Every kid on the trip can get sick, but they still love it,” Garcia said. “It comes back to life experience.”
Garcia said that many students who go deep-sea fishing have never been to the ocean before.
“Some of them don’t even know there’s parks on the other side of town,” he said.
The youth center offers plenty of special activities in town as well.
Its holiday events include an annual Halloween party for the youth and a Thanksgiving party meal that served 130 people last year. More than 600 people showed up for the youth center’s Christmas party, where a volunteer dressed as Santa Claus stayed longer than planned to attend to the gargantuan line of children who wanted to sit on Santa’s lap.
The city’s gang task force provides most of the funding for the youth center, Bravo said. In addition, the program gets support from NFL quarterback and Gilroy native Jeff Garcia, he said.
Police Chief Denise Turner noted that several programs are involved locally in gang intervention.
Those include Community Solutions, which provides intervention, treatment and residential services, and the Fresh Lifelines for Youth program, which works with troubled youth at local schools. Local church youth groups and the police department’s Drug Abuse Resistance Education program also are reaching out to young people, she said. Such intervention programs are “money well spent,” she said.
“The more we put into intervention, prevention and education, the better off we will be,” Turner said.
