In Your Backyard

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...

I like to book a hotel room some weekends to rest up and get a quick break from life at the Sunnyvale Shelter. It’s not that the shelter is not well run or that I don’t like the people I live with — it is and I do. Anyone who’s ever lived in any kind...

My husband and I lived on the sidewalks of Downtown San Jose for years. I can spot the different places where we made beds and memories as I walk around these streets today. Strangely, I feel nostalgic, as if I was visiting my old high school and seeing my freshman year homeroom. It’s almost like...

Becoming a mother a few decades ago and a grandmother recently, I’ve come to appreciate considering the world through the eyes of a child and listening to words out of the mouths of babes. We could all learn a few things if only we would take the time to listen. But listening deeply is easier...

I can’t remember many holidays as a little girl. So much has happened since then, I often struggle to remember much at all about that period in my life. I remember homelessness much more vividly. I recall the holidays on the streets felt particularly lonely, filled with dark sadness, deep despair and nagging hopelessness. Days...

Daylight breaks through the door jam of my “safe spot” where Baby-girl, my canine companion, and I rest each night from our day on the streets. I begin to ready my bicycle and pull-cart on this July mid-month morning with the things we would need for the day: Warm clothes for the evening, food and...

As I approach a year of experience as the community liaison at Second Street Studios, the city’s first permanent supportive housing project in downtown San Jose, I have been equal parts amazed by the knowledge and creativity our residents display and confounded at the subtle ways in which our elected officials and decision makers continue...