These days, Fred Pena strains to remember the years he lived out of his car in the Bay Area.
Feelings are easier to access.
“There’s a sense of dread,” Pena said in a recent interview, sitting on his bed in a studio apartment on the fifth floor of an affordable housing complex in Santa Clara. “It’s cold, or it’s too hot. And the police hassle you.”
Pena had been living in his gold Honda Accord in Mountain View, where he said he stayed in a church parking lot.
Now, Pena, 63, has his own apartment at Calabazas Community Apartments, which features more than 140 rental studio units designated for unhoused and low-income people. He’s been living there since the fall of 2021.
His move there was facilitated by Abode, a Bay Area nonprofit that helps homeless and low-income people gain stable housing. The building was developed through the organization’s housing arm. Half of the building’s units are designated for chronically homeless people.
Before moving into Calabazas Community Apartments, Pena stayed at Willow Glen Studios on Pedro Street in San Jose, an interim housing program operated by the nonprofit.
Pena, who grew up in San Francisco and fell in and out of homelessness after losing a job at a major phone company in the ’90s, said he’s thankful for the organization.
“I don’t think I could have done it without them,” he said. “I wouldn’t be here without Abode. (I’d be) living in my car, still.”
Abode is hoping to raise $25,000 through Wish Book to provide 125 move-in kits to 125 households. The funding would pay for essential furniture, kitchenware, hygienic supplies and bedding. One household can range from one to six people. Multiple counties would be served, including Santa Clara, Alameda, San Mateo and Santa Cruz.
Brittney Kirkland, Abode’s senior director of health and wellness in Santa Clara County, said the household items are considered immediate needs for people who are transitioning into housing. The home goods help create stability and a sense of dignity for those who were formerly homeless.
“It can really, really reduce stress and anxiety, because once someone is housed, there’s so many things that individual or household wants to start working on that they weren’t able to when they were unhoused,” Kirkland said. “If we can provide them with the things that they need to help them not have to worry about that, that is really going to catapult folks into a better quality of life.”
Abode was founded in 1989 in Alameda County, and has expanded to serve more than 14,000 people per year throughout the Bay Area, according to the organization. “Our agency is built on the principles of housing first, a proven approach that has yielded far superior results than those of past strategies for ending homelessness,” according to the nonprofit’s website.
That approach, Kirkland said, tears down many of the barriers people living outdoors face.
“Let’s paint that picture,” she said. “How do you obtain housing? You obtain housing by obtaining a job. How do you obtain a job without being able to afford interview clothes? Even if you have interview clothes, how would you shower or wash those clothes? How would you get to the interview without transportation?”
Since 2020, Abode has housed more than 7,500 people, according to the organization’s figures. And during its last fiscal year, Abode helped more than 14,350 people through its programs; served more than 6,700 people on a given night who would otherwise be homeless or at risk of losing their housing; and assisted about 3,000 kids and more than 500 veterans.
Kirkland said her experience being unhoused when she was younger drew her to the work she’s doing at Abode. She understands the seemingly insurmountable challenges homeless people face. The nonprofit’s numbers and outcomes are wonderful, she said, but it’s still not enough. She continues her work for the moments of transformation — the moment when a client begins to lift their head up, make eye contact and smile.
“The beautiful transformation of someone so broken from these systems and then coming through the transition into being joyous and happy and free and ready to work on what’s next,” Kirkland said. “And then them sharing their experience with others who may be just transitioning into their community is this beautiful phenomenon that just fills me up and keeps me going.”
Back at Calabazas Community Apartments, Pena said he was homeless for more than a decade before being helped into stable housing. His studio is small; there’s a bathroom, a kitchenette and some storage. His twin-sized bed is shoved into a corner under a large window, which was opened on a recent day. The muffled sounds of music coming from a neighboring apartment could be heard.
It’s a place that is allowing Pena to think in the long term. He can see a time when — in several years — he may be on the way to a new, bigger home. When he was homeless, he said, he had similar long-term thoughts.
“But I think it’s more achievable now, you know?” he said. “I can see the light at the end of the tunnel better than I could before.”
THE WISH BOOK SERIES
Wish Book is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization operated by The Mercury News. Since 1983, Wish Book has been producing series of stories during the holiday season that highlight the wishes of those in need and invite readers to help fulfill them.
WISH
Donations will allow Abode to provide 125 move-in kits to 125 households. The kits include furniture, bedding, kitchenware and hygienic supplies. Goal: $25,000
HOW TO GIVE
Donate at wishbook.mercurynews.com/donate or mail in this form.
ONLINE EXTRA
Read other Wish Book stories, view photos and video at wishbook.mercurynews.com.
Source: www.mercurynews.com