Mental illness is not always hereditary. It’s usually a combination of genetic changes and environmental factors that determines if someone will develop a disorder — and this is true for homeless people. Research and cellular biology has shown that about 5% of diseases are genetically determined, whereas the remaining 95% are environmentally based. This makes...

In my experience, community organizers, activists and entry-level employees of community-based organizations age like dogs. I’ve been all three, and I feel like a modern-day Methuselah just five short years later. In my time here, I’ve shared in the joy of significant policy wins. I’ve marveled at the absurdity of the inequity in our community....

It has been more than one year since the first tenants, including me, moved into the county’s first permanent supportive housing project, Second Street Studios in downtown San Jose. What has changed? I can answer that in three words: Not a thing. Let me start at the beginning. On May 7, 2019, we got keys...

This summer, I was fortunate to be chosen to be on the Unhoused Task Force, whose purpose is to formulate emergency solutions to aid with the homeless crisis Santa Clara County is facing. Improving the quality of life for individuals who are living unsheltered — those in encampments, on the street, in parks, under freeways,...

Through my art, I hope to make people aware of the extreme inequality in our region and their inability to put themselves in the shoes of struggling people. Our society is very judgmental and cruel to poor people. Upper-class people are so dismissive of poor and uneducated people. When they want to help, they often...

I was asked to write a short story about my experience in the military and then take that experience and write a quick couple of paragraphs on my experience as a homeless vet. I can’t do that easily because we are talking about two different times in my life. I went into the military right...

When I was asked to share what I call my Black Lives Matter experience, I was divided within myself. It is difficult to write about an experience in your past when it brings back so many different emotions. Feelings of helplessness, shame, regret, fear and hopelessness. It took me back to a time when I...

Two weeks ago we watched in horror the ugly side of the San Jose Police Department. For many of us, the aggression and cruelty was a surprise. For the writers of the In Your Backyard column, this was the police force they’d known for decades. Below are three accounts of what it meant to face...

I have seen many difficulties in my life. Some undeserved — a product of being born poor in an unstable family unit. I have also made many mistakes that have led to repercussions, both emotional and physiological in nature. I was homeless for years. I have feared for my life many times. But nothing comes...