The Importance of Affordable Housing

SANTA CLARA COUNTY - Parents and families are often preoccupied with many of life’s “what ifs?”. What if my child doesn’t make friends at school? What if they skin their knee on the playground?

In 2023, Norma Camargo and her three boys were preoccupied with an entirely different series of “what ifs” – questions that couldn’t be fixed with a Band-Aid. Questions like: What if we can’t find a place to sleep tonight? What if my kids can’t get to school? What if my children don’t have enough food to eat? Or, worst of all, what if their school finds out we don’t have a home?

After fleeing from an abusive relationship (both physical and financial), Norma expected her life to improve rapidly, only to encounter a brand-new set of struggles awaiting her out on the street. Immediately, Norma found herself like thousands of others in Santa Clara County who have been relegated to sleeping in their vehicles or living in tents due to circumstances beyond their control.

“I was sleeping in the car for maybe three weeks with my kids. No way to cook for my kids, no place to stay. My life was about getting my kids to school on time and working all the hours the restaurant would give me. It was ‘squishy',” said Norma.

Norma and Ryan are enjoying their new home thanks to affordable housing.

Unfortunately, situations like Norma’s are all too common in Santa Clara County, and hers is just one of the many stories that echo like a chorus throughout the halls of the County’s Office of Supportive Housing (OSH) and its partners like Destination: Home.

The County’s solution to this pressing issue has remained consistent – create more accessible and permanent affordable housing.

Kathryn (KJ) Kaminski, Deputy Director of OSH, noted that affordable housing is critical in Santa Clara County because of the area's vast economic inequality: “We have renters that are paying a tremendous amount of their income in rent, which means they're extremely vulnerable to losing that housing at any point if something as simple as a car accident means they can't get to their job or they lose their ability to get to their job, they may then become homeless.”

Becoming homeless is a situation that Curtis Brown and his six children, unfortunately, know all too well. Originally from the Bay Area, Curtis was living in Las Vegas and working several jobs to support his family when his struggles began in 2020.

Curtis hugs his sons, Luther and Curtis, in their new home in Santa Clara County.

“I used to go around and do odd jobs at thrift markets - because I'm disabled. Like others, I had problems paying bills during the time of the pandemic. We got behind on our bills, the eviction came, and yeah, we were on the street after that,” said Curtis.

Stories like those from Curtis and Norma are the ones that keep Ray Bramson, Chief Operating Officer for Destination: Home, awake at night. He has spent years addressing complex issues related to homelessness/housing insecurity and pursuing community solutions such as affordable housing.

“There are a lot of reasons why affordable housing is important. It provides stability for our community. A place to live for seniors, families, youth, and a wide variety of people. But the most important reason for affordable housing is we know absolutely that it prevents and ends homelessness,” Bramson said.

In 2015, the community came together to create a roadmap for ending homelessness in Santa Clara County centered around a collective response. The community set an ambitious goal of creating 6,000 housing opportunities.

Since then, the County has outpaced its own goals with nearly 10,000 people connected with stable housing, 15,000 people placed in temporary housing, and 24,000 people receiving homelessness prevention assistance. At the root of these vaunted achievements is a simple and straightforward three-prong strategy the Office of Supportive Housing implemented for ending homelessness:

• Address the root causes of homelessness through system and policy change.
• Expand homelessness prevention and housing programs to meet the need.
• Improve the quality of life for unsheltered individuals and create healthy neighborhoods for all.

Kathryn Kaminski, Deputy Director of the Office of Supportive Housing, speaks to an audience outside of the County building at 70 West Hedding St.

Despite these successes, Kaminski noted that, as a county, we still have a long way to go: “We have been growing our supportive housing system, building more units, expanding programs, and we haven't yet been able to meet the need of the people who are living on the street and in shelters. That affordable housing we're developing and need so badly provides safety and security for the thousands of people in our community who need it.”

Curtis and Norma shared similar responses when asked about the comforts they missed most while living in their vehicles.

“There are so many things that we took for granted,” said Curtis. “Cooking breakfast, cleaning clothes, watching the kids go to school, and knowing they have a safe place to return home to.”

Bramson affirmed, “Once you get someone into a home, their entire life improves. They have a safe place to go. They have a community of people around them that they trust, and they find ways to get back into a society which accepts them and welcomes them and helps them on to the next steps in their lives.”

Because of the efforts of organizations like the Office of Supportive Housing and partners like Destination: Home, Curtis and Norma have a place to call home, safety for their families, and the security of knowing that tomorrow is not a question of “what if,” but instead appreciating the joy of what is.