With a goal of preventing and ending homelessness among U.S. military veterans by the end of 2015, Santa Clara County Board President Dave Cortese and mayors of Bay Area cities met with U.S. Secretary of Veterans Affairs Robert McDonald on Wednesday, April 22, 2015, and pledged to step up efforts in their own communities.Secretary McDonald met at San Francisco City Hall with Cortese, San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee, Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf and San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo during a Bay Area visit that also included stops at the VA Palo Alto Health Care System and the Oakland Office of Veterans Affairs.
“This is a challenge that we accept and have been working toward for the past few years,” Cortese said. “No one who serves his or her country here or abroad should be forced to sleep under a highway overpass, in a park or on a street.”
Reaching the goal needs a coordinated effort and a commitment to collaboration on the local level, McDonald stressed in the meeting. Federal, state and local governments, private businesses, philanthropies and communities all need to work together. According to the 2013 Homeless Census, on any given night in Santa Clara County, 7,600 people are homeless, and about 10 percent of them, or 718, are veterans.
The meeting with McDonald came just two days before the Santa Clara County Housing Task Force’s first meeting on finding ways to provide temporary, transitional housing for homeless individuals and families so they can stabilize their lives and get access to services.
Members of the public, service providers and those who are homeless or have been homeless are invited to the meeting from 9 to 11 a.m. on Friday, April 24, 2015, in the Board Chambers at the County Government Center, 70 West Hedding Street, San Jose. The meeting will also be live-streamed on the County website or can be watched at a later time. Click here for the agenda to the April 24 meeting.
The Task Force, proposed by Cortese and approved by the Board of Supervisors, will meet for 10 months to develop feasible solutions that can be launched in the short term, with particular attention to homeless military veterans, children and foster youth. The advisory group will present a report to the Board of Supervisors in December.
The Task Force is being chaired by Matthew Mahood, President and CEO of the San Jose Silicon Valley Chamber of Commerce, and Ben Field, Executive Officer of the South Bay Labor Council, and includes as members Supervisors Cindy Chavez and Mike Wasserman.
If you have any questions, please call my office at 408-299-3050 or email me at dave.cortese@bos.sccgov.org.
Janice Rombeck is the Communications Manager for Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors President Dave Cortese.
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