Saratoga News

Photograph by George Sakkestad

Cupertino Community Services, the emergency assistance agency serving Saratoga residents, helps people like Adriana Orosco and her son Junior make ends meet.

Helping Hand

Cupertino Community Services meets emergency assistance needs in Saratoga

By Sarah Lombardo

The median income in Saratoga is $122,000, according to a 1997 Saratoga Chamber of Commerce publication. The average home resale price tops $640,000. The homes are beautiful, the neighborhoods are neat and the city's reputation for affluence is well-known throughout Silicon Valley. The saying among some outsiders is that the engineers live in Los Gatos, but the company presidents live in Saratoga.

And that makes Julie Leung's job that much more difficult.

Leung is the publicity coordinator for Cupertino Community Services Inc., a nonprofit social service agency located in Cupertino that provides food, clothing, housing placement, rental assistance, money for utility bills, bus tickets to job interviews and sometimes simply a few bucks for enough gas to get to a doctor's appointment to residents living in the West Valley cities of Cupertino, San Jose, Los Gatos and Saratoga.

Saratoga?

Yes, Saratoga. The city's statistics seem to hide those who are struggling financially within Saratoga's borders, making it hard for Leung to convince potential donors to CCS--the referring agency for the Salvation Army--that some Saratogans do need help.

"It's frustrating," she said. "I'll be giving a talk or something, and people will laugh when I say that we serve clients in Saratoga. They just don't think it's possible."

But it is, for about 70 Saratogans assisted with food or money last year alone and 66 so far this fiscal year. Leung admits that with a population of more than 29,000, 70 people doesn't sound like a lot. But they're still 70 people who couldn't make ends meet. They're 70 residents who needed fresh vegetables or bread, money for necessary medication or a warm coat for a child.

"Even though the valley is booming, there are people who need help," Leung said. "There is a real problem. A lot of people are just a paycheck away from not paying rent."

But how do people on assistance come to live in such a seemingly wealthy community?

According to Olga MacFarlane, executive director of the Saratoga Area Senior Coordinating Council, some of them have always been here.

"Sixty percent of SASCC's members are low- to moderate-income, as defined by the Department of Housing and Urban Development," she said. "Some retired early, some lost husbands who didn't leave much and some simply have small Social Security checks. They may have enough to maintain their homes, but need help with other things."

It's what's known as real estate-rich and cash-poor: residents who long ago paid off their mortgages but whose fixed incomes are not rising enough to keep up with the cost of living in Santa Clara County. For those people, a roof over their heads is not a problem, but food on the table might be.

Just as it is for one local resident, who asked not to be identified. A refugee from Romania, the man and his wife immigrated to the United States in 1992. They had a friend living in Saratoga who let them come live with him, so a home for the couple was not a issue.

But the pair still visit Cupertino Community Services about once a week.

"They are helping us and giving us some bread and vegetables," he said.

SASCC applied to Santa Clara County for funds to help run its adult care center, which provides daily nonmedical care for area seniors, but was denied in April. Some Saratoga city staffers speculated that the city's reputation, and the 1996 vote to get rid of the utility-users tax, may have played part in the denial.

"The county looks at us and thinks, 'You're not even providing for yourselves. Why should we, when there are so many other places looking for funding?' " one staffer said.

County officials denied it, saying the SASCC request for funds was denied because the group didn't show sufficient outcomes from its programs.

But the blow is still being felt by the senior center, which relies mostly on funding from the city and county and has increased its fundraising plans to try to make up for the expected strain on its budget.

The city does have programs for low-income residents, such as the Saratoga Housing Area Rehabilitation Program, which provides grants for housing repairs. And the city has funneled Community Development Block Grants to programs that operate within Saratoga, such as Project Match (which provides housing for low-income seniors) and Tri-Aegis (which provides homes for developmentally disabled seniors).

And CCS recently received a $2,500 grant from the Saratoga Rotary Club for the purchase of a new vehicle to transport donated items.

But, as even staffers admit, seniors are the focus in most of the city's programs.

"Our city doesn't have a lot of low-income housing," said Paula Reeve, an administrative analyst in the city manager's office. "We concentrate mostly on seniors."

But that doesn't mean there aren't families in need in Saratoga. Some families move to Saratoga because friends or family members have opened their homes to them. Others are able to move here because they qualify for federally assisted housing.

"Many people end up in Saratoga because homeowners will allow their homes to be rented at below-market rates to people in need under Section 8 housing," CCS program director Barbara Jones said.

"Section 8" refers to part of the federally assisted housing program offered through the Department of Housing and Urban Development. The program is designed to provide low-income families with decent housing. Under the program, a family that qualifies for a Section 8 certificate is required to pay no more than 30 percent of its gross monthly income for rent, which often amounts to a couple hundred dollars. Landlords are then compensated by the federal government for the balance of the going market rent for the house or apartment, which is determined by HUD. Although in some areas the contract rent results in landlords receiving less than market value for their houses or apartments, in many cases it means more than market value--but a loss of many landlords' rights.

One right that the landlord does maintain, according to Jones, is the right to determine the deposit required for a place to live. And that, Jones said, is often where CCS comes in and provides assistance.

"Even with Section 8, landlords can require any amount deposit," she said, "so we often help out with the deposit to get people into a place to live."

Adriana Orosco and her four children lived for four years in Saratoga after they moved to the Bay Area from Modesto. She said that when she came to the city, she didn't know about its affluent reputation.

"This place was for rent, and the owner just let me rent it out," she said. "I never really knew about Saratoga."

But, she said, she can see where people get the idea that no one in Saratoga could need assistance. "You don't know it. There are not only rich people here, there's middle- and low-income people," she said. "You really don't see that. Those are the types of people who are in need."

Orosco said CCS was there for her when she needed food for the family and payday was still a few days away. She said she visits the agency only once in a while now for necessities for her and her family.

Orosco is proud to say she is off welfare and moved into a new place of her own in Campbell on May 15. She is working and said that she still seems to live paycheck to paycheck, but that things are improving. But other families in Saratoga rely on CCS for help.

"We are the agency in Saratoga," Leung said. "When residents are in need, we are the ones they are referred to. Most of our clients receive food."

But CCS doesn't receive funding from the city. Among its funding providers are the cities of Cupertino, Sunnyvale and San Jose, along with HUD, the Federal Emergency Housing Management Assistance program, Santa Clara County, United Way and the "Friends of the CCS."

CCS also holds a number of fundraisers, including the CCS Annual Barbecue and Auction and the CCS Annual Golf Tournament, called "Swing for CCS" and scheduled this year for Friday, June 2, at Deep Cliff Golf Course in Cupertino. The tournament is one of the agency's biggest fundraisers.

The sixth annual golf tournament comes at a time when Leung and others at CCS are launching a new education campaign. Leung said she wants to work on dispelling the myth that West Valley residents don't need a helping hand once in a while. Leung points out that the agency has distributed an average of 7,000 pounds of bread, produce, canned goods and dairy products each month in 1998.

"Yes, even in these affluent areas, children still go to bed hungry at night," Leung wrote to a local newspaper.

But with the agency's fundraisers and education efforts, Leung is hopeful that word will get out and donations will come in.

"We're really developing some plans to educate the public," she said. "This is something that can be helped."

For more information on Cupertino Community Services Inc., call 255-8033. For more information on "Swing for CCS," call Linda Walker at 252-1288 or Steve Andrews at 494-1216. For more information on the Saratoga Area Coordinating Council, call 868-1257.

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