A Night in Motel 22
Busline Becomes a Shelter for Homeless to Sleep Through the Night
By Alex Gutierrez

It's just past two in the morning and the wind blows fast and sharp. Everyone waits at the Eastridge Transfer station for Bus 22 headed for Palo Alto. We all gather around as it pulls up near the edge, as the door flaps opens everyone pushes their way in like salmon swimming up stream. The bus driver starts to yell,   “Back up, either line up straight or no one gets on the bus!”

We all back up, hoping to get out of the cold as soon as possible, flashing our day passes, and a few pay in cash, trying to negotiate their way for a few free rides at least until the morning.

The 22 bus travels 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year in and out of the streets of San Jose, Sunnyvale, including Palo Alto. The streets are lonely and quiet throughout the middle of the night, and the bus ride can last at least two hours between San Jose and Palo Alto. A lot of people call the bus line “Motel 22”, because if you don't have a place to sleep that's the only place to go.

Two people get turned away for not having the fair to ride, and the rest of us set down our belongings and get in position to get some rest, at least until we have to switch buses back to Eastridge. It amounts to two hours of sleep back and forth per trip. A whole night usually comes out to about five trips a night, switching buses every so often.

I wake up a few hours later with my cheek pressed against the cold glass of the window. The bus is vibrating from the motor and roaring from the engine. I sit up straight and remove my hood from my head, take a look around the bus to see who is around me. I notice the woman talking to herself sitting behind me, the group of kids in the back of the bus talking about where they're gonna find some bomb at 3 in the morning, along with the guy trying to do magic tricks, bothering who ever glances at him.

I sit in the middle, on the left side of the bus, snatching up whatever sleep I can before its time to switch at the last stop. The Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) security gets on the bus looking for whoever is asleep to tell them to at least sit up and give room for whoever is also getting on the bus. While going through the passengers, the guard smacks one of them too hard, and an argument breaks out. The conflict doesn't last very long because the guard threatens him, saying that if he keeps talking, that he won't be riding on any VTA bus at all, and will be stranded in Palo Alto the whole night. The passenger stops arguing.

During a bus switch heading back to San Jose,   me and three others stepped off of the bus and start crossing the street. As we cross the street, a VTA security officer pulls up in front of us and asks us why we crossed the street on a red light. In my mind, I'm thinking it's not about the red light at all, but more about the discrimination against homeless people who ride Motel 22. He threatens us with not being able to get on the bus back home to San Jose. The matter was squashed and we headed back to San Jose at the Eastridge transit center, then we waited until it was time to catch the next bus back to Palo Alto. It can be a tiring practice, but at least the bus is warm and shelters us from the cold.