For greater than 4 years, Angela Montoya lived in a gutted shuttle bus in suburban Mountain View.
It was higher than a tent, however the transformed airport bus nonetheless lacked a rest room or operating water. And to keep away from getting towed, she was compelled to stake out new avenue parking each few days.
However the hardest half, Montoya stated, was stepping by the piles of trash and used needles left by fellow vehicle-dwellers, apprehensive that neighbors could also be watching from inside their multimillion-dollar houses.
“It was embarrassing because I don’t know what these people think of me,” Montoya, 61, stated. “I didn’t want to be lumped into the category. I always thought of myself as better than that, and I am better than that.”
Then a couple of yr in the past, a neighborhood outreach officer with the Mountain View police division related her with The United Effort Group, and the nonprofit helped her kind by stacks of paperwork to get on a listing for a low-income condo. One volunteer even took day trip of her day to drive Montoya to her housing appointments.
It wasn’t lengthy earlier than she landed a one-bedroom rental in Santa Clara, not removed from her job as an usher for concert events and soccer video games at Levi’s Stadium. Montoya and her Doberman Pinscher combine, Lacy, have now been of their new dwelling, embellished with tapestries of her favourite animals of the African Sahara, for about six months.
She has no plans to return to the road.
“I remember a long time ago I was in rehab, and I dreamt that all I want is a dog and my own apartment,” Montoya stated. “That was 30 or 40 years ago. And here I am. I got my dog in my apartment, and I am not going to lose it.”
The United Effort, based through the pandemic in 2020, is a volunteer-led group that connects homeless individuals throughout Santa Clara County with a variety of companies and advantages, from reasonably priced housing and Medi-Cal to job coaching and pc literacy tutoring.
Claire Hubel, a United Effort co-founder, stated one of many most important challenges stopping unhoused individuals from getting assistance is navigating a bunch of bureaucratic businesses and programs. The method might be overwhelming, particularly when many wrestle even to maintain their cellphone charged whereas dwelling in a tent or car.
So every Saturday, educated volunteers meet with shoppers at a church parking zone in Mountain View to assist fill out profit purposes, refer them to service suppliers or arrange transportation to medical appointments. Volunteers additionally repeatedly go to encampments to do outreach.
“We just keep following up, following up, following up to make sure the client is successful,” Hubel stated.
By the top of the yr, the group expects it should have helped round 600 individuals. Already, it’s assisted greater than 60 shoppers find everlasting housing in 2024. Want Ebook donations will assist the group rent a full-time worker for record-keeping and to keep up its volunteer-developed databases to assist homeless individuals discover reasonably priced housing and advantages.
Montoya, a mom of three, discovered herself with out a everlasting dwelling following a string of poisonous relationships and struggles with alcohol habit. She left her kids with household and started staying with pals, however felt uncomfortable imposing on them and finally wound up on the road.
She moved right into a tent after which to the shuttle bus, satisfied she’d spend the remainder of her life homeless. Even immediately, it’s exhausting for her to consider she has an condo of her personal.
“I got a chance, and when I have a chance, that means a future,” she stated.
Having the condo meant that this fall, Montoya was lastly in a position to meet her 9-year-old grandson, Tyler, who lives together with his father in South San Francisco. She purchased him a pumpkin when he came around her in Santa Clara.
“He said, ‘Dad, I like this better than our house!’ So he wants to come back,” Montoya stated.
With the newfound stability, Montoya plans to start out volunteering with The United Effort to assist in giving others the chance to piece their lives again collectively.
“I want to pay it forward because I was helped,” she stated. “That’s where you get your real self-worth and your happiness from, helping others. You can’t sit around being selfish. That’s where love comes from, helping other people. If everybody did that, we’d all be a lot better off.”
THE WISH BOOK SERIES
Want Ebook is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit group operated by The Mercury Information. Since 1983, Want Ebook has been producing collection of tales through the vacation season that spotlight the needs of these in want and invite readers to assist fulfill them.
WISH
Donations will assist The United Effort Group Inc., help shopper companies, together with serving to them with advantages purposes, housing searches, job coaching and quite a lot of different human companies. Objective: $25,000
HOW TO GIVE
Donate at wishbook.mercurynews.com/donate or mail on this kind.
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