Following a statewide directive to shelter-in-place, San Jose leaders on Tuesday unanimously approved allocating $2 million to fund homelessness prevention services for low-income families at risk of being pushed into poverty. Santa Clara County’s Board of Supervisors on Tuesday also approved an additional $2 million to the same $11 million fund meant to provide rent assistance...
Silicon Valley officials, tech giants launch program to help residents pay rent
A group of local government, business and philanthropic leaders have launched a program that will help pay rent for low-income residents in Santa Clara County who have had their lives financially upended by the coronavirus. The program, part of the Santa Clara County Homelessness Prevention System, is being led by Sacred Heart Community Service, which...
Santa Clara County releases coronavirus testing numbers, more first responders fall ill
Following three new reported deaths and a jump in coronavirus infections, Santa Clara County officials on Monday released long-awaited information about how many people have been tested for the virus so far, but they still don’t know how many tests have been given outside the county’s facility. The county’s Public Health laboratory has tested 1,044...
Santa Clara Convention Center transitioning into temporary federal hospital
As the number of COVID-19 cases in Santa Clara County continues to rise – up to 302 as of Sunday, with 10 deaths – so does the strain on area hospital staff and resources. In an effort to ease that demand, the Santa Clara Convention Center started the process of transitioning its facilities Monday morning...
Coronavirus: South Bay day laborers struggle for work, resources
Next to a sketch of a waterfall on a whiteboard at the Day Worker Center of Mountain View, Harlan Iverson, a former Silicon Valley software engineer, wrote an equation and graph showing exponential growth of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. Iverson, 35, has been next in line for the center’s laborer list, waiting for a job since...
Santa Clara County makes plan for more hospital beds as COVID-19 spreads
Santa Clara County officials say they’re making plans for a projected surge in hospitalizations due to coronavirus just as deaths across the county reached double digits and infections rose by 106 cases in the last two days. As of Sunday night, 10 people had died from the virus, up from eight on Friday, and the...
Coronavirus and mental health: Anxieties spike amid Bay Area’s isolation
In the few hours before his daughters wake up, Derek Cheng anxiously tries to get ahead on the Slack messages, meetings and work he needs to tackle that day. Now having to “shelter in place” at his home in Santa Clara, the 48-year-old software marketing director is balancing homeschooling and his family’s schedule with fulfilling...
Silicon Valley nonprofits feel the blow of coronavirus two-fold
Over the past week and a half, Leslie Bacho has watched as the number of volunteers showing up to stock and pack food at Second Harvest Food Bank has halved, just as the need for that food peaks. The San Jose-based food bank is boxing up food in its warehouse for pickup, rather than have residents...
San Jose officials asks residents to report ‘stay at home’ violations
If you see your neighbor or a business violating the “stay at home” order that now applies to all of California, the San Jose Police Department wants you to call 311. On Friday, San Jose Chief of Police Eddie Garcia along with Mayor Sam Liccardo said the police department saw 56 violations of the order...
Death toll rises as Santa Clara County officials plead for medical supplies
Santa Clara County has emerged as the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak in the Bay Area, and on Friday the contagious virus claimed two more lives in the county as more San Jose firefighters tested positive for the illness. Meanwhile, nurses across the county are pleading for donations as they face a shortage of safety...