Community Support | Santa Clara Housing Advocates

COMMUNITY IS ABOUT SUPPORT

We all share this world, but more than that, we are a community and neighbors. As responsible, compassionate people, we should care about the welfare of others, even when it does not relate to us.

There is never going to be a perfect solution to solve the "homeless problem", but we have to try something. Getting anyone off the streets and into shelter with access to resources is a win, even if we can't help everyone.

In one of the wealthiest parts of the country, we need to recognize our privilege. We should want to help those less fortunate than ourselves, and that goal can be made easier when people with excess resources help those without.

While many shelter - type projects across the country receive aggressive backlash from community members due primarily to fear and misinformation, others have received the support of neighborhoods.

Our own neighbors have spoken about known unhoused people in the area, admitted that they are kind and cause no problems, and still wished them death or violence. Violence against unhoused people takes place at significantly higher rates than violence from unhoused people.

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Building community support will require changing some ideas of what it means to experience poverty or homelessness. Many wealthy people are afraid of the image in their minds of an unhoused person, believe that homelessness is personal failure, and that helping impacted people will only make the situation worse. This perception will only make the situation worse.