ABOARD VTA BUS 22 — Sylvia Hernandez bundled up with extra clothing from her small pull cart and prepared to join the other dozen people trying to doze on the bumpy ride between East San Jose and Palo Alto, Calif. It’s still early, she said. Just wait.
“Later, it will completely be full of homeless people,” Hernandez said.
By midnight, the transformation from public bus into “Hotel 22”³ was well under way — and among the growing number of no-place-to-call-home riders was a father and his 10-year-old daughter.
“We don’t have a place to stay,” said the man, who wouldn’t give their names, but said they had spent nights this way for five months. “From early evening to morning, we’re on the bus.”
Line 22, the only bus route that runs 24 hours in the Santa Clara (Calif.) Valley Transportation Authority system, becomes an unofficial shelter each night, a mobile testament both to the resourcefulness of the region’s homeless and the agonizing challenge of finding shelter in pricey Silicon Valley.
Weary riders can start at the Eastridge Transit Center and travel for two-plus hours to the end point at the Palo Alto Transit Center. There, they wait for a return bus, and then maybe make the round trip again. Somehow, they manage to nod off despite the herky-jerky motion and lights coming on with each stop as an automated voice announces the location.
“The bus says to me that people are so desperate that they will ride it all night,” said Jenny Niklaus, the CEO of the nonprofit EHC LifeBuilders. “Think about it: We are in such a state of crisis that people are eager to ride a bus, and it’s been that way for years.”
One early morning last week, an older woman, who would identify herself only as Angel, said being a Hotel 22 rider comes down to simple survival skills.
“The bus,” she said, “is safety.”
The complex problem of homelessness is a hot-button issue in Silicon Valley at a time when the high-tech economy continues to fuel the expensive
home and rental markets — widening the divide between haves and have-nots.
A 2012 U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development report highlighted how the South Bay has become a front line to the homeless quandary not only here in the Bay Area, but nationally as well. It found that San Jose and Santa Clara County had the nation’s highest percentage of unsheltered homeless as well as the third-highest number of chronically homeless.
Using data from another census, conducted in January, it was estimated that 19,063 people in the county would experience homelessness this year. The survey found that 27 percent of homeless said they had been turned away from an emergency shelter in the previous 30 days — usually because of a lack of beds.“There are 5,000 homeless on any given night, and we just don’t have enough housing for all of them,” said Ray Bramson, San Jose’s homelessness response team manager.
That explains Hotel 22.
The line is VTA’s longest and busiest route, ferrying about 20 percent of the system’s overall bus ridership. In the overnight hours, three buses make the meandering trip that runs from East San Jose, through downtown, onto the El Camino Real corridor into Santa Clara, Sunnyvale, Mountain View and finally Palo Alto — before heading back.
VTA officials make clear that homeless have just as much right to ride as anyone as long as they obey the rules such as no smoking, eating or drinking.
“We serve the public, and that includes anybody who has the need for transportation and has the ability to pay,” said Greta Helm, the VTA’s chief external affairs officer. “If people present a valid fare, there’s no reason to dispute them boarding.”
A one-way fare costs $2, but monthly passes can be purchased for $70, and VTA also has a program offering some free, quarterly transit passes to homeless and those in risk of losing their housing. So the Hotel 22 is a relative bargain in high-cost Silicon Valley.
As night stretched into early morning last week, late-shift workers and club-hoppers who mostly stared at their smartphones thinned out. They largely were replaced by people using the bus to catch some sleep rather than reach a destination. More were men than women, and the ages of all tended to skew older.
“This bus has all kinds of names, like Hotel 22 or some just call it ‘Life on the 22,’ ” said Tony Velgara, a bus operator. “These usually are nice people, but they’re just dealing with hard times. They’re just like anybody else.”
Hernandez, 52, sat near the front where she could stay close to her cart containing possessions. Hernandez said she has been homeless two years since losing her disability compensation, splitting nights between what she described as “benches” and Bay Area public transportation.
“People think it’s easy finding a place to stay, but in a bad economy, it’s very difficult to even get into a shelter,” Hernandez added. “And the winter shelters aren’t going to be opening for another month, and it’s going to begin to rain soon.”
When passengers disembarked in Palo Alto, they only had to wait a few minutes before climbing on a San Jose-bound bus. On this trip, the father slept sitting up in a back corner. His daughter was lying over three seats, covered in a blanket, a backpack serving as a pillow.
The father was uncomfortable revealing details about their lives. But he did say that he’s 40, has been unemployed and that he and his daughter, who is in fifth grade, are on a family shelter waiting list.
“She’s managing, much better than I ever expected,” the father said after waking her as the bus reached Eastridge at about 1:45 a.m. “I have no idea how she’s doing it. This is one of her best years so far in school.”
The girl, acting like a Hotel 22 veteran, had joined a large group of people gathering for another journey toward Palo Alto — a mixture of newcomers and those who had made the previous round trip.
“Daddy, the bus is coming!” she shouted in a voice both urgent and tired.
As it left the station, the Hotel 22 nearly was full.
“In the morning,” the father had said before boarding, “she’ll get on the bus for school.”
The experience of the homeless in Felton
Jeffrey Scofield, Rob Ropes, Jonney Hughes, and Linda Miller discuss their experiences living homeless in Felton. Joe Shreve/Press-Banner
The topic of homelessness in Felton is not exactly a new one, but in the past several months, it has become something of a hot topic as local community groups and organizations have made a priority of addressing the environmental and societal concerns associated with homelessness and homeless encampments.
In the wake of some extensive coverage of the efforts of the political and community organizations, a group of homeless agreed to meet with the Press-Banner on Tuesday, Oct. 8 to share their own experiences of being homeless in Felton.
“I never dreamed I’d be homeless,” said Jonney Hughes, a woman in her early fifties who described herself as being retired and on disability. “There’s all kinds of reasons people are out here.”
Hughes said that she found herself without a home in 2003, when she was suddenly widowed.
For the next five years, she said, she camped in many different places in the Santa Cruz Mountains and found herself accepted into what she described as a tight-knit family of fellow homeless people.
“They took care of me,” Hughes said. “You just don’t have any of the things you need to have, so everybody looks out for everybody.”
Hughes said that while she has lived in a fifth-wheel camper since 2008, she still maintains regular ties with her homeless friends.
“I still come here every day,” she said. “I love these people.”
Linda Miller, 54, originally hails from Virginia, but has lived in the Felton area for the past 9 years, living with her boyfriend, Rob Ropes, in his recreational vehicle — parking it wherever he can find a safe place.
Miller, a retired nursing assistant, said that she is currently on disability and found herself homeless 20 years ago in the wake of a messy divorce.
David Paul, an unemployed woodworker, has camped in the Felton wilderness since early August. He said he had been living with his brother — who has a home in the area — for several months after moving from Colorado in search of work.
While he has not been homeless in the area as long as the others, it is not his first time being homeless, either.
“I’ve done it before in Colorado,” he said. “I’ve gone through this before.”
‘One of these days, they could be right where we’re at.’
All of the homeless people interviewed said that they are all too aware of the spotlight cast on them, and negative reputation associated with them, in recent months.
Many said that they feel as though they are being unfairly assigned blame for issues raised by the community — such as littering, drug abuse, and aggressive panhandling.
Often, they said, issues arise when mentally ill people from local treatment facilities are mistaken for homeless people, or new — often younger — homeless people come to the area and do not understand the rules followed by the established homeless community.
“We try to police our own people,” Hughes said. “You’ve got a lot more younger (homeless), and it’s up to the older ones to teach the younger ones.”
Ropes said that most of the homeless in the area are just trying to eke out a living, and described the idea of drug abuse as “ludicrous.”
Ari Stines, a younger homeless man agreed.
“Most of the people who can afford drugs are in downtown (Santa Cruz),” he said.
Hughes said that, as far as littering goes, recycling is often the primary source of income for homeless people, and they “recycle everything they can get a hold of.”
Ropes, who has to frequently move his recreational vehicle due to lack of a legal place to park it, said he is often harassed — even when the RV was parked at an auto shop with a work order invoice attached to it.
“We don’t do drugs, we don’t panhandle, and we don’t beg,” Ropes said. “All I want to do is be left alone.”
While Paul acknowledged that a few bad apples occasionally appear, he said that most homeless people are just trying to make the most of a bad situation and the spotlight falls on the homeless because “you’re so much in the open here.”
“The people that are willing to help themselves aren’t the problem,” Paul said. “(The ones that aren’t), they just get to a point where they just go underground.”
Miller said that she was often upset by what she sees as a lack of communication and understanding between the homeless and the community.
“It really upsets me,” she said. “One of these days, they could be right where we’re at.”
‘I wish we could find a place’
The reality of the situation in Felton, Hughes said, is that with crackdowns on camping on private property, such as the closure of the Felton Meadow property by Mount Hermon, have concentrated the homeless into a few places.
“The bottom line is, where do they want the homeless to go?” she said.
Paul, who is a member of the Felton Reboot group working to clean up downtown Felton, said that he and other homeless were trying to get involved in dialogue with community members.
“Some of us are trying to do some outreach,” he said. “We’re trying to put our best foot forward.”
He said that the homeless needed to acknowledge the community’s concerns as much as vice versa.
“They have valid concerns,” Paul said. “You can’t discount people — otherwise, it’s just a wall between us.”
Ropes said that he, and others, have paid rent to down-on-their-luck homeowners who are willing to let homeless camp on their property, but that always comes with the fear of bringing a red tag down from the county.
“I paid $10,000 for this RV,” he said. “I have some money; I’d be happy to pay rent.”
Hughes, who herself lives in a fifth-wheel trailer, said that one day, she’d like to see a place set aside for homeless people to camp, and not put homeowners at risk by renting to homeless.
“We’re worried we’re going to get (the homeowners) in trouble,” Hughes said. “I wish I could find a place where homeless could go.”
