“Every Day I feel the Beating Heart of Silicon Valley”
How I Joined the Community Homeless Ministry
by Sandy Perry

How did I get involved in homeless ministry? In April 1991 I read an article in the newspaper about Scott Wagers and the Student Homeless Alliance. At that time Scott was a sociology major at San Jose State University and used to lead delegations of students under the bridges to meet with the homeless – and then lead the homeless back out to speak at meetings at the university and at City Hall.
 
The article headline - “Student Homeless Alliance Has Political Agenda” - immediately intrigued me. I was raised as a Quaker to honor values of integrity and compassion. The idea of a city (and an entire nation) abandoning people to live in the streets like animals was shocking and abhorrent to me. It still is. I was also a political activist, and the opportunity to participate in a movement for human dignity and justice fired my imagination.
 
I called information and found Scott's number. I arranged to meet him that same day. At that time he was 25 and still a weight trainer with outsized biceps. “I will not stop until every homeless person is housed,” he told me.  I was 42, a college drop-out working in construction with a wonderful wife, Andrea, and a six-year old daughter, Christina. In my spare time I began to throw myself into helping Student Homeless Alliance with all its various organizing projects.
 
Shortly after, we called one of our first demonstrations. It was at a press conference organized by then-Mayor Susan Hammer to promote her half-billion dollar Giants baseball stadium. About 25 of us – mainly homeless people – began to chant and picket when she stepped up to the podium. The news cameras swiveled around and focused on us as we cried out, “What do we want? Housing! When do we want it? Now!” We heckled Mayor Hammer as she struggled to speak about major league baseball. Glenn, one of the homeless brothers, yelled, “How about some major league housing!” Mayor Hammer said that her stadium proposal was a home run and she could hear the crowd cheering already. “Boo!” we responded.
 
A year later, in spite of an expensive campaign supported by all the usual special interests, the wasteful stadium proposal was rejected by the voters of San Jose.
 
In July, Student Homeless Alliance held its first march. It was called the “March for Dignity”. About 100 of us gathered in front of Julian Street Inn and then marched to Plaza Cesar Chavez downtown. We called for housing for the homeless and an end to police sweeps of the homeless.
 
In 1992 we were arrested for the first time. The homeless had no place to go when the National Guard Armory closed on April 1, so we set up camp on the front lawn of City Hall. We crowded into the Mayor's sixth-floor office lobby as the news media buzzed all around us. Every channel interviewed Helen Dunn, a beautiful, very elderly woman who had no place to lay her head now that the armory had closed. Scott Wagers, Eddie Pugh, and Darrel Milner met with Mayor Hammer, but no solution to the crisis was offered.
 
When night fell, the police notified us that City Hall was closed and ordered us to take down our tents and leave. Some urged us to obey, saying we had made our point already and there was no reason to continue protesting. But obviously we had not made our point – there was still no shelter for the 100 people gathered on the City Hall lawn, not to mention the several hundred others displaced by the armory closures who had already dispersed. Thirteen of us, including Scott and I, sat down and refused to move. As our supporters cheered for us, the police led us one by one to the paddy wagons and we got the first marks on our rap sheets.
 
In the fifteen years since then we have continued to serve the homeless, march with them, minister to them, shelter them, take over buildings with them, and use every means available to shine a spotlight on the moral bankruptcy of a government that refuses to meet the needs of its people. In 1997, Student Homeless Alliance changed its name to CHAM and became a ministry. We found that we could not maintain our morale, and the morale of our people, homeless and non-homeless alike, without a spiritual foundation. Scott became our Pastor, and Sister Adrienne Lawton joined us as our Associate Pastor. We began to worship together, study the Bible together, and pray for one another and for our people.
 
One thing that CHAM has done for me over the years is to tie my fate with the fate of the homeless in San Jose, for better or for worse. In 2001, I had two total hip replacements, so I quit my day job and became a full-time volunteer at CHAM. Since then, whenever homeless people are hurting, I always feel the impact. When they have a problem, I have a problem. It has its difficulties and its downsides, but it keeps it real. Every day I feel the beating heart of Silicon Valley struggling to survive.