Protesters marched from San Jose City Hall to the Bill Wilson Center to bring awareness to youth homelessness on Nov. 10. <\/p>\n
Guest speakers, including Councilmembers Matt Mahan and David Cohen, SJCC\u2019s Director of Student Activities and Development Blake Balajadia and Chief Executive Officer of the BWC Sparky Harlan, welcomed attendees and educated them on the importance of tackling youth homelessness before the walk began. <\/p>\n
The BWC is a non-profit organization that helps Santa Clara County youth gain access to services that will help them to find shelter, food, employment and more. <\/p>\n
Harlan, who has been the Chief Executive Officer at the BWC for 39 years, was homeless herself for many years starting at the age of 18.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was tossed out of my house at age 17,\u201d Harlan said. \u201cI was living on-and-off the street and going to college, and (my) college never knew it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Harlan said her job from her group home saved her. She worked 50 plus hour shifts to make the money she needed, but still recognizes that youth homelessness now looks a lot different than when she was homeless. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis is your program, this is your population, these are your peers, you design it,\u201d Harlan said. \u201cThings change, so we listen to our young people and say, \u2018Tell us what you want. What do you need? What\u2019s your situation?\u2019 You design a program. You don\u2019t like what we\u2019re doing? Tell us what you do want.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Linn Morison, who worked for the BWC for 25 years and helped to co-organize the first youth homeslessness walk, advocated for what she believed to be the main solution to youth homelessness. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe biggest thing is funding, obviously,\u201d Morrison said. \u201cFunding and allowing people and agencies, like the BWC, to do their job. To trust that these people know what they’re doing so don\u2019t put strings attached [to the money].\u201d<\/p>\n
Picketers marched to the Drop-In Center<\/a>, a program of the BWC dedicated to helping homeless youths (from ages 14-25), whose primary purpose is to help find safe and permanent housing. Services include food, personal care items, access to technology, showers, laundry care and support services. <\/p>\n Trevon Evas, a resident of the Drop-In Center, said the BWC makes his life a whole lot easier. <\/p>\n \u201cMy friend actually directed me here\u2026I bought my ticket on the greyhound instantly. I came out here with one duffle bag of clothes and that\u2019s it,\u201d Evas said. \u201cNow I have a car, I have a job and I\u2019m soon to have a house, and that\u2019s all thanks to the Bill Wilson Center.\u201d<\/p>\n Evas spoke about how he believes everyone has a different solution to solving youth homeslessness, but a big one for him is to build more non-profit shelters. He said it matters because what causes a lot of homelessness is the, \u201cgreed on wanting to claim territory.\u201d<\/p>\n SJCC offers a program called the Guardian Scholars<\/a>. This is a service that offers SJCC students foster and homeslessness support. <\/p>\n Balajadia, who has worked at SJCC for almost 10 years, brought his family to march for the cause. <\/p>\n \u201cI have my kid sitting on my shoulders. To think that somewhere, someplace, a kid like him, is without a family and without a place,\u201d Balajadia said. \u201cAnd being an educator, seeing what that effect does when they have community, and they have education, and they have support; I feel like it\u2019s such an important thing for us to focus on as a region.\u201d <\/p>\n Balajadia elaborated to say it is important to tackle this issue not only as a region but as individuals. He encourages others to show support and rally where they can and at the very least, offer a simple, \u201cHello!\u201d to anyone they can. <\/p>\n Click for more information on The Bill Will Center<\/a> or SJCC Support Programs<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Protesters marched from San Jose City Hall to the Bill Wilson Center to bring awareness to youth homelessness on Nov. 10. Guest speakers, including Councilmembers Matt Mahan and David Cohen, SJCC\u2019s Director of Student Activities and Development Blake Balajadia and Chief Executive Officer of the BWC Sparky Harlan, welcomed attendees and educated them on the…<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17135,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[1740,1739,1738,1741,1737],"staff_name":[],"class_list":["post-17133","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-billwilsoncenter","tag-bwc","tag-homelessness","tag-homesless","tag-youth"],"yoast_head":"\n