By Khalida Sarwari
Changing demographics and rising costs are prompting a rotating shelter for homeless men in Silicon Valley to shut down at the end of the month.
Faith In Action, which provides homeless services in facilities of at least a dozen churches and synagogues in the South Bay, including in the cities of Sunnyvale, Cupertino and Saratoga, is facing an unexpected challenge: It’s not getting enough qualified candidates, according to executive director Cathey Edwards. To qualify, the program requires its members to be clean and sober and employable, or at least willing to work.
“We have come to find in the past two years that it is increasingly difficult to find candidates that meet our criteria and who are willing to join our program,” Edwards said. “Many of the men who qualify for the program are now working. As we see the demographic of the working homeless changing and we also recognize the epidemic proportions of drug and alcohol addiction, it has left us with too few guests to sustain the program.”
Edwards described the profile of the majority of the men enrolled in the program as “employed homeless.” In other words, they have jobs and maybe even a car, but still can’t afford housing.
“A lot of the guys that are employed, they are busy; they want their independence. They want to be able to eat what they want to eat; they don’t want to come eat at 8 o’clock and follow rules,” she said. “I understand that they have some economic power and they want to use it.”
Still, it’s no secret that Santa Clara County is one of the nation’s most expensive real estate markets. So at night, many of these men will often sleep at the office, in their cars or with friends, Edwards said.
“I feel the housing situation in the Bay Area is so difficult that it’s creating a different demographic of employed homeless,” she said. “The housing crisis, I think, is really the main thing that people are struggling with, and I don’t know if our model … is actually the answer to that.”
At the same time, Edwards said, the program is getting costlier to run. As the number of participants has dropped to almost half the program’s capacity of 15, keeping up with minimum wage increases and the rising cost of insurance for the organization’s employees has forced the collaborative to increase its operating budget.
If it continued to operate, the organization was facing a budget of almost $137,000 for 2018, or roughly $9,000 more than this year’s of $128,000. That goes toward paying four part-time staff members, including three overnight supervisors, with financial support from individuals as well as family and faith-based organizations.
While the future of the organization has been a subject of internal conversations for two years now, the plan to close the shelter was spurred by Edwards’ recent resignation announcement. After serving as the program’s executive director on a volunteer basis for the last six years, Edwards is moving to Monterey, where she’ll be working full-time as a legal consultant for small and midsize corporations.
“When I gave my notice to the board, we really looked at several alternatives,” she said. “Closing was not our first-time choice. We looked at hiring a replacement on a part-time basis or transitioning the program to another agency.”
But to continue, the organization would have had to increase its budget to hire a part-time executive director or transfer the program to a different agency, which would have run Faith In Action’s budget up to at least $180,000. Neither option is cost-effective given the low number of people being served today, Edwards said.
Faith In Action has operated since 1990 but took on the rotating shelter program in early 2012 with the aim of providing the homeless with transitional housing at host church sites while supporting their efforts to re-establish a stable and self-sufficient lifestyle so they ultimately can afford permanent housing. As long as the men agreed to stay clean and sober, the program offered them a slew of supportive services, including case management, shelter, meals, shower facilities, bus passes, job counseling and job development.
Since then, it has sheltered more than 200 men and moved more than 100 into permanent housing. It’s for practical purposes that the program serves only men, Edwards said. Because of the organization’s small budget, it can afford only one overnight supervisor at a time. Another reason is that when the program launched, the vast majority of the homeless were men, she said. Today there are more homeless women than before.
The program currently houses six men, but Edwards said the staff is working to move them either into permanent housing or other local shelters by the end of the month.
With Faith In Action out of the picture come Dec. 30, Edwards encouraged residents to consider volunteering for or supporting other local organizations that provide shelter and services for those who are struggling, such as West Valley Community Services, Sunnyvale Community Services and Village House, a women’s rotating shelter.
“I think we’ve been very successful and I feel we’ve helped a lot of people, especially in the past 25 years, but … it is important for our faith community to focus on other programs in the area and put that energy toward some of the newer programs,” Edwards said. “I feel like this iteration (of Faith In Action) has done its work.”
The collaborative will hold a celebratory event at Sunnyvale Presbyterian Church on Feb. 10 for its volunteers.
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