The Sunnyvale Sun

Community

Shelter provides refuge, help for local homeless

By Crystal Lu

In the cold rain, 13 homeless men stand outside St. Jude the Apostle Episcopal Church on McClellan Road in Cupertino. At 8 p.m. the doors open and the men walk into the church's community room, where the fireplace is on and there are roasted chicken and boiled peas on the counter for their dinner.

"We still have room for two more," says Charles Nelson, night supervisor of the rotating shelter program of Cupertino Community Services (CCS).

The program provides food and shelter every night to a maximum of 15 drug-and-alcohol-free homeless men. With 11 churches and one synagogue collaborating, the shelter rotates on a monthly basis.

There are 12 religious institutions involved in the year-round program, which is different than the Emergency Housing Consortium (EHC) cold weather shelter program, which runs from the Monday after Thanksgiving through March 31 at the National Guard armories in Gilroy and Sunnyvale.

The Sunnyvale armory, located at 620 E. Maude Ave., has a capacity of 125. An exception was make to take in 140 homeless people during the recent storms, according to EHC.

The CCS program is much smaller, but its current beneficiaries call it the best shelter program they know.

"In some other shelters you have to keep your shoes on to sleep or they'll be gone in the morning," says Alan Emmerich, one of the 13 homeless men staying at St. Jude. "But here you don't have to worry about your possessions getting stolen, and there's no violence, no drug or alcohol abuse."

Through the program, Emmerich and the others have daily access to showers at the YMCA. They all look clean and neat. Most of them have jobs, which don't pay enough for them to rent an apartment. The ones who are not currently working are looking for work.

"We're just like everyone else," says Emmerich. "I used to own properties, but I lost everything through some bad choices I made."

"Homelessness can affect anyone. It doesn't discriminate, and it's not something ethnic-specific," says the only Asian among the 13 men, who asks to remain anonymous.

Now working at Goodwill during the day and for the shelter program at night, Nelson recalls the years when he was homeless.

"I started drinking at age 13 and doing drugs at age 14," he says. "Then I wasted 35 years of my life."

In 2002, 48-year-old Nelson went through rehab before entering the shelter program. As soon as he started the program, he obtained employment with Goodwill.

Nelson spent four and a half months in the program's rotating shelters. Then he moved to a unit of the CCS transitional housing program, paying $350 for rent. He lived there for two and half years until he was able to afford renting an apartment in Sunnyvale.

"It's a great program. It really is," he says. "It basically saved my life."

For more information, visit www.cupertinocommunityservices.org.