YOU MAY BE ABLE TO HELP US END FAMILY HOMELESSNESS

Tents and makeshift shelters alongside piles of possessions have become a disheartening, and far too common, sight along the roadways, sidewalks, and trails of Santa Clara County. What is most disheartening is seeing children in these encampments - or sleeping in vehicles on our streets.

No family should be sleeping on the streets of one of the wealthiest regions in the world. Every child in our community deserves the ability to thrive, and that begins with a home.

Currently, approximately 600 families in Santa Clara County are homeless. Another 600 new families enter homelessness for the first time every year.

With your help, we now have the ability to house every one of these families - and give the children in them the opportunity to develop and flourish in a permanent and stable place to live.

The HEADING HOME campaign brings together the County of Santa Clara, City of San Jose, Santa Clara County Housing Authority, Cisco, and other partners to achieve “functional zero” homeless families in our county in five years – meaning the number of housing placements for families is greater than the number of families entering homelessness.

In order to achieve this ambitious goal, we will be working together to house 1,200 homeless families in the next year and then 600 per year going forward.

We are also working to expand homelessness prevention services so that fewer families fall into homelessness, with a goal of serving 2,500 households by 2025. We are also investing in housing problem solving programs, which quickly house families who recently became homeless.

Ending family homelessness in the County is possible because of the significant amount of resources that President Joe Biden and Governor Gavin Newsom have dedicated to the issue. The Santa Clara County Housing Authority has been awarded approximately 1,000 emergency housing vouchers, which will provide rental support to homeless households for up to ten years. The vast majority of these vouchers will be targeted towards homeless families.

However, to make this work, to achieve our goal and get homeless families off the streets and into permanent housing, we need landlords, desperately.

Vouchers are useless if the families that have them cannot find a landlord willing to accept them. In recent years, the skyrocketing demand for rental housing throughout the Bay Area has meant that landlords have more prospective renters than rental units. This has led to a situation where vouchers are going unused and expiring, and families with the ability to pay rent are being forced to continue living on the streets.

If you are a Santa Clara County landlord you have an opportunity right now to directly help improve the quality of life in your community and provide a family with the stability and opportunity of a permanent home, all while still getting the rent paid every month.

All it takes is a little extra time. The next vacancy you have, make the effort and rent to a family with a voucher.

In the past 18 months, we have successfully come together as a community to deal with COVID-19. As a result, our infection and death rates during the pandemic have been far lower than many other parts of the country. Now, if we work together again, we have an opportunity to end family homelessness in Santa Clara County in the next five years, and once more show why this is the best place to live, work, and play.