Homeless Families are a Growing Concern, Especially For Immigrants

This is part of a series on immigration that is running across 12 Patch sites.

By Jeremy Infusino

Unless you know what to look for, aid agencies say it can be hard to identify the hundreds of homeless people living in Gilroy. The city has the highest per-capita rate of homelessness in Santa Clara County, but many of the homeless people seen getting their morning cups of coffee look just like their fellow Gilroyans.

Yet, a new kind of homelessness, perhaps even harder to spot, is disproportionately affecting undocumented residents in Gilroy and beyond—when several families, children included, live in cramped quarters under one roof.

“It’s out of sight, out of mind,” said Marty Estrada, homeless outreach coordinator at St. Joseph’s Family Center.

Agencies that work to help homeless residents said it is difficult to know exactly how many people are living in these conditions. The most recent homeless census, set to release its findings this month, did not include the difficult-to-count population.

Yet despite the lack of data, those working in the field said there are a significant number of undocumented families who—fearing deportation or rejection of aid—live together in the limited space.

“There are certain services that you can only access if you have citizenship; there’s a huge fear that speaking to authorities will put you in danger,” said Samantha Green, assistant project manager at Applied Survey Research, charged with conducting the biannual census in Santa Clara County.

The federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) offers housing “vouchers” to help pay rent, but the vouchers are limited to citizens and certain documented immigrants, according to the HUD website.

Many local aid agencies, however, don’t consider legal residency when offering services, said Robert Dolci, the county’s homeless concerns coordinator.

“We don’t ask if someone is undocumented,” he said, adding that it is a “non-issue.”

Gilroy resident, Guillermo Hernandez, 36, came to the U.S. with his mother, father and brothers when he was only 3 months old.  Growing up, Hernandez always had a roof over his head, and it wasn’t until about three years ago that he became homeless, he said.

The son of undocumented immigrants, Hernandez grew up in the U.S., working regularly in construction before the economy turned downward, he said. With little work, his wife and three children lost their home and lived in motels, cars and relatives’ houses.

“It was hard for them,” Hernandez said, “hard for all of us.”

Hernandez said he was aware of some houses and apartments where families, many of them immigrants who didn’t know one another previously, lived together in order to save money.  Hernandez said he didn’t want that for his family, because he didn’t want his kids to grow up around people who were strangers.

Recently, Hernandez qualified for a housing program through St. Joseph’s.

“I’m happy the kids can have their own rooms,” Hernandez said, “They can finally stretch out and be secure, and enjoy privacy as well.”

During the last homeless census, completed nearly two years ago, Gilroy had 599 homeless residents. That number is expected to rise with the recent count.

Due to the need for local aid, activists in Gilroy are working to open a year-round shelter and service center, a local one-stop facility to help connect families with aid programs. 

Internet-based hubs like the Santa Clara County Homeless Collaborative, as well as constant outreach, can give some of these families the chance to have housing to themselves, with room to grow.

“We need to get the community involved,” said St. Joseph’s Estrada, “If we can get the community involved, we can solve a lot of the homeless issues in Gilroy.” 

This article was produced through a collaboration of PatchU and the School of Journalism & Mass Communication at San Jose State University. PatchU is a Patch Media initiative to build strong relationships with colleges and universities across the country. The mission of PatchU is to connect students and faculty to opportunities at Patch.  

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