California State University East Bay

The Pioneer

California State University East Bay

The Pioneer

California State University East Bay

The Pioneer

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Homelessness Among Single Men Persists in Alameda County

Gustavo Bautista, a homeless man currently living in
Fremont, has not had a roof over his head for nearly
six months.

Today, I only have two dollars left to spend,” said Gustavo Bautista, a homeless man in his mid-forties who calls the streets of Fremont his home. Born in Fresnillo, Zacatecas, Mexico and raised in Guadalajara, Bautista has been living in the United States for nearly 25 years. This is his third and longest stint of homelessness, as he has been without shelter for almost six months.

“When you live in the streets, you don’t have enough money to get a room, or shower or sleep your normal hours,” said Bautista.

Occasionally, he sweeps the parking lots of car dealers not far from where he sleeps, as the owners pay him about $30 to do so, which he says he needs to stretch to last him about three days.

“I like honest money,” he continued, explaining it wasn’t too long ago that he was working back-to-back shifts at a Chili’s and a Texas Roadhouse in Union City. He says he was able to spend close to $50 a day on food and shelter for himself, but currently has only spent about $1,600 over the last six months.

Bautista is just one of nearly 2,200 homeless individuals living on the streets, completely outside of emergency or transitional housing, making up over half of all homeless persons in Alameda County. persons in Alameda County. People of Hispanic or Latino ethnic descent make up around 9.5 percent of the homeless population in Alameda County in 2011, while non-Hispanic or Latinos made up nearly 86 percent. However, it should be noted that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) measures Hispanic and Latino only as an ethnic choice, not a racial category such as African American or Caucasian, which both made up roughly 38 percent of the homeless population in Alameda County in 2011, respectively.

Bautista is also on his own, putting him squarely in another category that has recently seen significant growth. From 2009 to 2011, the number of unsheltered adults without children have spiked, now making up three-fourths of the total homeless population, according to a 2011 homeless count conducted by EveryOne Home, Alameda County’s main program for combating homelessness.

Elaine deColigny, the executive director of EveryOne Home, says the organization’s efforts have been primarily focused on removing homeless families from the streets.

“Our approach has been, as we solve it for one group or subgroup of homeless people and we put some things in place that are working well, we look at where the gaps are, and turn our attention to the next thing,” she said.

deColigny explained EveryOne is working on two new initiatives which could help make a dent in the overall amount of single homeless people on the streets of Alameda County, including the Alameda County Impact program, which will provide 50 permanent housing subsidies, paid for in large part by new funds from the federal government. It will be targeted at single homeless adults, primarily men, who have high visibility with law enforcement.

She says five communities will receive some of those subsidies, including Hayward, Fremont, Oakland, Berkeley and Livermore. Essentially, it works similarly to a section eight housing subsidy, where the beneficiary would pay a fair share of their income towards the rent of an apartment or unit at fair market value, and the federal government will make up the difference.

The other program will target individuals who are utilizing general assistance currently, and who are unemployable due to a disability, and should be receiving Social Security benefits. deColigny says due to the tedious and bureaucratic nature of signing up and getting approved for those funds, many people give up before completing the process, and end up on the streets.

This program will provide them with a housing allowance so they can move into a room for rent or a group home while they are working on obtaining Social Security money, and then the federal government will refund the county on its investment. The initial money will come from funds already available in the county, but the money that will be paid back will go into a trust fund so it can be used for the same purpose again.

The first program is expected to begin by roughly February 2013, and the second program will be in effect around fall of this year.

deColigny says getting people with disabilities off the street is the best thing they can do to help right now, as those persons may not be able to get their feet under them without having a place to sleep.

“Spending years on the street is brutal on your physical and mental health,” she said. Bautista might agree.

“I walk around stinky and living in the streets, it’s not fair, man,” says Bautista.

“How would you like it if you were doing your job and someone throws quarters at your head and yells ‘Go back to Mexico, wetback,” he said.

Bautista says he searches for new jobs frequently, making trips to the local home improvement store to try and get paid for a day, as well as applying at many businesses and restaurants, but has not had much luck.

He recounted several incidents where he says he was treated unfairly and illegally by some of his former managers, who he claims would make him clock out early but stay for hours longer to do more work, threatening him with termination.

He hasn’t spoken to his two daughters in Mexico in over seven months.

Living on a street corner near a Middle-Eastern food market, Bautista says he has had many issues stemming from his inability to make money, including not being able to hire a lawyer. He needs legal representation because he says his social security number was stolen a number of years ago, and he has been informed that whomever has it has collected over $25,000 in unemployment benefits, essentially barring him from collecting any during this time of hardship.

“There must be a reason he is in the situation he is in, I don’t want to make it worse,” said Sal Alswafta, owner of the market that Bautista sleeps outside of. “Pushing him out of here won’t solve his problems.”

Bautista says he has paid taxes nearly every year he has lived here, and feels let down by the system.

“I helped the city, I helped the state, now nobody wants to help me,” he said.

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Homelessness Among Single Men Persists in Alameda County