Sleeping Bag
s for the Home
Max Baler
lEss
Sleeping Ba
gs for the Ho
Max Baler
meless
Dedication
I dedicate this book to Hector Garcia for the amount of help he gave
me on this project as well as his service to his community.
Hector passing out food.
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Acknowledgments I would like to give a huge thanks to everyone who volunteers with Sleeping Bags for the Homeless. Thank you to Jason Greco for helping me throughout the process of creating this book. Additional thanks to Freestyle Academy for the resources you have available to me and to my family for always supporting me.
Photo of Homeless Encampment.
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P r e f a c I N T R O D U C T I O O r g a n i z a t i o H o m e l e s S o l u t i o C o n c l u s i o W O R K S C I T E
e N n s n n D
I
Preface
was first introduced to Sleeping Bags for the Homeless when my mom signed us up to volunteer. Before I went, I thought it would be a cool organization that had a different approach to the homeless issue in this area. Once I met Hector Garcia and saw all the work that he did for the group and the
community, I realized how much more the organization means. Fast forward a couple months to when we got assigned the documentary project at Freestyle Academy. We were tasked with choosing an organization, a person or an issue to be the topic of our documentary. I immediately recalled my experience with Sleeping Bags for the Homeless and knew I had to choose them. Making a documentary excited me but at Freestyle Academy, we made more than just that. In my three classes, I was to make an intro video about the organization, write a research paper on it and then make that into the book you are currently reading. I’m not going to lie, it has been a lot of work. The most immediate challenge I faced was time management. The project took around 2 months to complete and even with scheduled check ins, I often found myself falling behind. This project has definitely taught me how to not only use class time well but to come in after class when needed. We learned and used 3 different adobe programs to make the products and it was fun using them. This book has helped me not only with time management but also taught me core media design skills that I will use throughout my life.
Man entering his home on a bike. 9
O
Introduction
n the news, you can hear about different battles around the world. With books, you can read about past battles or about ones that happen in space, 200 years from now. In movies you can watch made up, dramatized battles, between good and evil. One battle that most people don’t
know normally hear about is the battle that’s happening right here in Silicon Valley. It’s a battle that has been going on for a long time and has no foreseeable end. Back and forth, with no ground being gained. Meanwhile, resources, time and energy are all being wasted on a battle that shouldn’t have ever started. It’s the battle between the homeless and the local governments, specifically in San Jose. While the idea of the battle may not surprise most, as it makes sense that the city would want to clean up the situation, the details of the battle makes it one worth writing about. The government’s approach to cleaning up the homeless population is to sweep through homeless encampments and throw everything away. This strong-arm tactic gets rid of all of the trash and the eyesores that the general population might see as they drive past an overpass that shelters an encampment. Though, along with all of the trash, all of their food, supplies, shelter and personal belongings are also thrown away. This leaves them with nothing and nowhere to go when the city decides to sweep their encampment. Coming to the rescue, Sleeping Bags for the Homeless, a non-profit, volunteer group, delivers supplies to the homeless that need them. Homeless encampments that were recently swept are the targets for the initial supply drop, and other encampments that need help are visited after. This organization helps make sure the homeless don’t go hungry and ensure they have shelter. Hector loading up his truck. 11
The
Organiza tion
S
leeping Bags for the Homeless takes pride in being different than most volunteer groups. The leader of the organization, Hector Garcia, calls it a “non-profit, non-profit, non-profit.” Not only is the group run by only volunteers, it doesn’t like to deal with money donations. What makes SB4TH (Sleeping Bags for the
Homeless) so special is how fast the help reaches the people that need it. You can make a donation and immediately see the people that receive your aid. The way the group works is simple. Every other Saturday morning, volunteers meet at a church parking lot in San Jose. People can choose to volunteer, make donations or do both. The group of volunteers separate into smaller groups that will caravan together to the different homeless encampments. All donations are collected that day and are then split in between the different caravans. Then everyone drives to their designated encampments and gives the supplies directly to the people. No need to give money to an organization with the hope that your money will be used in the most productive way. Not only does the organization extremely help the homeless, but it also helps the community. The homeless are often stigmatized as being immoral, lazy people. Lisa Baler, a volunteer with Sleeping Bags for the Homeless and a Mountain View native, expressed her initial thoughts of homeless people: “Unfortunately, when I was growing up, we were told to ignore them and look the other way.” She also confessed that initially, while giving out supplies, she “felt unsafe, which I’m embarrassed to say, but I did. I felt unsafe.” We are raised believing these stereotypes about homeless people and it affects the way we treat them today. After spending more time with the homeless, inside their encampments, she realized that there “was no reason to be afraid because these people, once we were there, they knew we were there to give them things that they needed and they were incredibly grateful” (Baler).
Hector at the end of the day. 13
This organization would not be possible if it weren’t for the extreme amount of help from Garcia. He goes above and beyond to help the community in San Jose. Originally born in Mexico, Garcia immigrated to the United States, alone, as a teenager. He put himself through high school and college, teaching himself English along the way. Now, he owns his own company, Pro-Clean Janitorial & Building Maintenance, as well as past sales jobs at Dawn Foods, Mission, Nestle Waters, and Coca Cola. He believes now that he is blessed with having his own business and enough money, it is his duty to give back to the community. He thinks that if “we all decide to do a little bit, help a little bit, it would be a whole different story” (Garcia). Even while running his own company, organizing the Sleeping Bags for the Homeless events and leading his own caravan, he does so much more. He often drives around San Jose talking to the homeless to survey and see where there was a encampment sweep so he can make sure to visit there with SB4TH. He takes it upon himself to try to meet specific needs of the homeless. One woman needed a collar and leash for her dog. Garcia made sure to buy it and bring it to her when they came next. If there is ever a need for money, Garcia will take it out of his own wallet. He will often give money to one of the volunteers if they ran out of tents or other supplies someone might need.
“If we all decide to do a little bit, help a little bit, it would be a whole different story.” - Hector Garcia Clothes laid out for the Homeless. 14
The
Homeless
T
he most surprising thing about the information at hand is how relevant the homeless issue is to us in this area. In 2017, US Department of Housing and Urban Development recorded that around 554,000 people are homeless in America. California makes up 25% of the homeless population in America, with
134,278 people without homes. The wage gap between the rich and the homeless is much higher in California than any other state. If we go deeper than that, Santa Clara County has one of the highest homeless populations in the nation. A question has to be asked: What in the Silicon Valley is causing the homeless population to be at a much higher level than in most parts of America? The factor that attributes the most to this issue is the rising house market. Many people have to move out of this area, despite being raised here and living here their entire lives. According to the The San Jose Mercury News, 16,000 Bay Area residents have moved out, seeking homes in a cheaper housing economy. The Bay Area “remains the top region for outward migration in the country”(Hansen). When comparing similar houses in Sacramento and houses in Silicon Valley, houses in Sacramento are seen to be 75% cheaper than those in the Silicon Valley. People with average paying jobs in this area can’t afford houses. Teachers can no longer afford to live around the schools that they teach. The price of housing has simply been raised and is still being raised exponentially faster than wages. But more importantly, people with minimum wage jobs can’t afford to pay rent, let alone buy a house. That is where the real issue lies. There are very little job opportunities open for the homeless. Even if one does get a job, how are they going to get to work every day? Are they going to have enough clean clothes to wear every day? Can they get a good enough sleep at night to perform well the next day?
Photo of woman after receving food. 19
However, none of that matters because, to put it simply, you can’t afford to live in Silicon Valley with a minimum wage job. After a couple minutes of apartment searching, you can find that the average price of an apartment in San Jose is around $2,000 a month. On July 1st, the minimum wage in California will be raised to 12 dollars an hour. Multiplied by 40, the average hours worked a week in a full time minimum wage job, and multiplied by the 4 weeks in a month, comes out to $1,920 made in a month without taxes. Which doesn’t seem that bad. But take into account food, transportation, taxes, and other basic necessities, the amount made isn’t anywhere close to the needed to rent an apartment. Now that the difficulty of getting out of homeless cycle has been identified, it is important to see how the city is currently addressing the problem. Besides a few government organizations that help people with mental and physical disabilities, the only tactic the city is using to address the issue is the homeless encampment sweep. After giving the homeless a few days’ notice, police or other government workers will come with a garbage truck and throw everything away. Keith Saldivar, a homeless man who has gone through these sweeps many times, describes the desperation people have after the sweeps: “When you get everything taken away from you continuously and have all of your work done, to make yourself comfortable and safe, just destroyed repeatedly over and over again, you can’t continue.” Saldivar wants people to try to remember “at least one time in there life where they lost everything and had to start from ground zero. And that’s what homeless do every time I mean almost everyday.” (Saldivar.) There is no way that this can be a solution to the homeless issue. Pushing away the problem and never actually fixing the issue have never been the answer.
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“When you get everything taken away from you continuously and have all of your work done, to make yourself comfortable and safe, just destroyed repeatedly over and over again, you can’t continue.” - Keith Saldivar 21
The
Solution
D
ue to most of the problems with homelessness being rooted deep into society, it would take a lot of time and effort to fix the issue entirely. One thing that can be done at this time, is to help improve their quality of life. The current solution that the city has is just not working. It further
extends their battle with the homeless. Taking away all of the homeless belongings and throwing it away, is not going to make them go away. The first step in fixing the problem is to start treating the homeless like humans. According to Saldivar, the reason that the city does sweeps are because of the garbage accumulated by the homeless. He talks about “people that have a tent and a pile of garbage right next to it just as high as the tent in a matter of days.” While having large trash piles around the city is wrong, there is no place for the homeless to throw away their garbage. One thing that Garcia and Saldizar have been trying to get for awhile, are dumpsters. They believe that given the opportunity to clean up after themselves, the homeless would gladly use them. Unfortunately, that brings up another problem. They can’t get dumpsters. Saldivar explained his process. “I tried to get a dumpster where I was and was told I couldn’t because I didn’t have an address. That was fine but I had to be the owner of a lot in order to get it and it still had to have an address.” They theorize that if they can clean up after themselves, that the city would not have as much incentive to sweep the encampments. The second and most promising solution to the problem is permanent, protected, city run encampments. In Saldivar’s opinion, “Nobody really wants to be homeless, we all want the same thing everybody else does. Safety, security and a place where we can go and just rest our heads when we need to”(Saldivar). He and Garcia proposed that the City of San Jose pick spots throughout the city to build small homeless communities that supply bathrooms, shelter, basic health care and security. The exciting thing is this idea has been made a reality and proven to work.
Homeless encampment under an overpass. 23
In Oakland, two homeless communities composed of lines of Tuff Sheds were built. The sheds include bathrooms, a bed, access to showers and medical supplies. Every night between 8 PM and 5 AM, the door is locked giving the homeless security and letting them fully relax at night without worry of someone hurting them. According to The Mercury News, “Officials say eight people who moved into the Sixth Street sheds have since found permanent housing, and 15 have found jobs�(Kendall). Hopefully if the City of San Jose takes the money used to sweep encampments and use it building permanent homeless communities, they can finally start to fix the homeless issue.
Another photo of a homeless encampment. 24
S
Conclusion
leeping Bags for the Homeless helps many homeless stay sane and gives them necessary resources to survive. For Garcia, that isn’t enough. Garcia wants to dream big. Bigger than the Silicon Valley and Bigger than the homeless problem. His new goal is to try to expand Sleeping Bags for the
Homeless into an organization that helps many more people throughout the bay area. He says “ I want to be able to help families that are in the same situations. I want to provide help, financial support if I’m able to do it.” Helping those less fortunate is something very important to him. Garcia shows us what true generosity looks like. After coming from an life of having nothing to a life of having everything he needs, he still insists on giving back. He is an inspiration to everyone that meets him. If more people were like him, the world would be a much better and cohesive place.
Photo of Hector. 27
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Works Cited Day, Eli. “The Number of Homeless People in America Increased for the First Time in Seven Years.” Mother Jones, 29 Apr. 2018, www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/12/the-number-of-homeless-people-in-america-increased-for-the-first-time-in-7-years/. Hansen, Louis. “Packing up and Moving out: Bay Area Exodus Continues.” The Mercury News, The Mercury News, 9 Feb. 2018, www.mercurynews.com/2018/02/08/packing-up-and-moving-out-bay-area-exoduscontinues/. Kendall, Marisa. “Homeless Greet Oakland’s New Tuff Sheds with Hesitation, Hope.” The Mercury News, The Mercury News, 8 May 2018, www.mercurynews.com/2018/05/08/homeless-greet-new-tuff-sheds-withhesitation-hope/. Mondics, Jamie. “How Many People with Serious Mental Illness Are Homeless?” Treatment Advocacy Center, www.treatmentadvocacycenter.org/fixing-the-system/features-and-news/2596-how-many-people-with-serious-mental-illness-are-homeless. “Venture Capital Funnel Shows Odds of Becoming a Unicorn Are Less than 1%.” Corporate Innovation Trends, 3 Aug. 2017, www.cbinsights.com/research/venture-capital-funnel-2/. “Veteran Homelessness.” National Alliance to End Homelessness, endhomelessness.org/resource/veteran-homelessness/.
Woman after receving help. 29
M
ax Baler is currently a Junior at Los Altos High School. He also attends Freestyle Academy and is enrolled in their Digital Media and Design classes. After school during the spring, he plays Varsity Lacrosse. He is also in the Boy Scouts of America and is currently a Life Scout. He is a frequent church attendee at Los Altos United Methodist Church and participates in their youth choir, . When he’s not doing any of those things, he likes to listen to music, to make music, to hang out with friends, to play video games and to volunteer in his community. His dream is to one day become a famous musician or music producer and play at large music festivals. Or just be well known by his community.
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Sleeping Bag
s for the Home
Max Baler
lEss