The Willow Glen Resident

Photograph by Skye Dunlap

A Room of his Own: Montgomery Street Inn resident Richard Gamble relaxes in the room he will move into after he secures a full-time job. Currently, he shares a dorm room with 20 other men.

InnVision strives to house, feed homeless

Willow Glen-based group runs shelters throughout county

By Cecily Barnes

Makeshift campsites repeatedly set up beneath the bridge at Lincoln and Coe avenues are evidence that continuously rising rents in the valley are leaving no community untouched by homelessness, including Willow Glen.

An organization that recently moved its administrative offices in the area is doing all that it can to help.

"We know that the Willow Glen community is concerned about the growing visibility of homeless people in this area," said Jan Bernstein, a community relations coordinator for the Willow Glen-based homelessness organization InnVision. "I'd like to help them understand why that's happening and let them know what they can do to alleviate the situation."

InnVision is a nonprofit organization that has provided hot food, warm beds, showers, clothes and job-training assistance to homeless people in Santa Clara Valley since 1973. The group owns and operates 10 shelters that serve single men and women, children and families in transition throughout the county, including the well-known Montgomery Street Inn, which serves between 80 and 300 people each day.

InnVision uses tough love to get its clients back to work.

"If you love someone, you discipline them," said Dee Ramirez, program coordinator at the Montgomery Street Inn. "We have a 90 percent employment success rate."

Unless their job calls for evening work, Montgomery Street Inn residents must return to the shelter's clean and sober confines by 7:30 p.m. each day. In order to stay at all, they must either have a job or be actively searching for one. To assist in this search, InnVision provides job-training assistance, computer classes and counselors to help residents scour the classifieds.

"If you want to rebuild your life, go to the Montgomery Street Inn," Ramirez said. "We provide [for] basic human needs and follow up until people get on their feet, but we do not accept repeaters."

Shelter-users say the job-training and counselors provide a necessary structure.

"They give you all the tools you need to get back on your feet," Montgomery Street resident Richard Gamble, 47, said. "The program really works."

After only two weeks at the shelter, Gamble has found a part-time custodial job. Once he lands full-time employment, he'll be eligible to move from the dormitory room with more than 20 beds into transitional housing, which provides tiny rooms separated by a privacy curtain.

"It gives them an incentive," Ramirez said.

While InnVision acknowledges that Willow Glen has not typically been a hot spot for the valley's homeless, the staff points out that many communities are seeing a rise in the number of homeless people.

"There's just been a huge increase in homelessness, and that's why it's beginning to be visible in Willow Glen," Bernstein said. "We've been running our shelters at 100 percent capacity."

Bernstein says there are ways to help, and a number of businesses already have.

Willow Street Wood-Fired Pizza, Cafe Primavera and Italian Gardens all donated cooked food to InnVision's meal program, and Willow Glen's Safeway threw in 12 pounds of bacon. The Willow Glen Inn and the Thrift Box each gave bags of clothes and toys, while Round Table Pizza has fed volunteer workers. And the Stone Church of Willow Glen is helping rebuild a 55-bed women and children's shelter that burned in a devastating fire last year.

"Any kind of donation helps," Bernstein said. "Even a roll of toilet paper or hygiene item."

Bernstein has made up a series of informational cards that she plans to pass out to Willow Glen merchants. The card provides referral numbers and addresses for the homeless. InnVision also provides community speakers to educate groups on homelessness and what people can do to help remedy the problem.

[ Back to Contents Page | Willow Glen Resident Home Page | Archives ]