Opinion: County’s safety net services build stronger communities for all

As a county supervisor, I have the privilege and responsibility to help oversee a range of safety net services that are indispensable, offering crucial support to our most vulnerable residents and ensuring that everyone has the opportunity to achieve a better quality of life.

Our county’s safety net includes a wide array of programs covering healthcare, housing assistance and food security, among others. These programs are designed to provide a lifeline to those in need, ensuring that no one is left behind.

Here are some ways we’re helping county residents.

Supporting the unhoused

For the second year in a row, we’re providing grant funding to the city of Cupertino, the town of Los Gatos and the nonprofit Reach SV (in partnership with the Los Altos Mountain View Community Foundation) to help supplement services and support each offers to local folks experiencing homelessness.

Each community is unique, and the needs of the unhoused residents who call these places home vary greatly, so who’s better equipped than the local communities themselves to identify those needs? While community partners are well-positioned to assist, it can be difficult for smaller cities to find the resources they need to support this work on their own.

That’s where the county comes in. I’m delighted that the grants we’ve provided will help support and encourage these efforts, allowing local jurisdictions and organizations to determine how best to use the funding.

Last year’s grant funding helped provide a variety of emergency support through Reach SV to unhoused residents and residents living in vehicles in Mountain View, and supplemented ongoing local efforts to support unhoused residents in the West Valley. This work included a Rotating Safe Car Park program serving Cupertino and Saratoga, and an emergency hotel program in Los Gatos.

All of that is in addition to the county’s own work providing housing and support services.

Addressing food insecurity

Food insecurity is an often-unseen hardship that affects far too many residents in our county. Low-income families are especially susceptible to this concern. When financial setbacks occur, families often cut their food budgets in favor of other expenses.

For that reason, I’ve worked with local community organizations to help provide supplemental food assistance for those who might otherwise go hungry. Our county has long partnered with West Valley Community Services (WVCS). The organization’s well-stocked food pantry in Cupertino is one part of the remedy. But the surest way to encourage certain people in need get the food and services they need is to bring the food and services to them.

With that in mind, our office led county support for WVCS’s mobile food pantry program, serving seniors, families and West Valley College students with weekly stops at sites across the West Valley, including Saratoga and Los Gatos.

In 2020, our county helped WVCS purchase a customized open-sided food truck — the bright blue “Park-It Market” van — which is regularly stocked with fresh fruit and vegetables, baked goods, dairy products, meat, fish and canned goods. Park-It Market’s clients are invited to choose the food that suits their needs and tastes, just like at a regular grocery store. The difference is that the food comes to them, and they never have to stop and pay at a checkout stand.

Responding to domestic violence

Too often I hear people say, ‘Domestic violence isn’t really a problem in our community.’ And I have to tell them that sadly, it is, and the statistics bear this out.

While the county has done substantial work to increase services and support for survivors of domestic violence and other forms of gender-based violence, including human trafficking and sexual assault, survivors do not always call law enforcement or go to large medical centers that have systems in place to recognize and respond to these circumstances.

To bridge this gap, I proposed county support for a training program for local community health centers and other community organizations to be able to identify and respond to intimate partner violence. People trust their local community health centers, where they often seek support for more than their physical health concerns. The training program we’ve pursued now ensures that these clinics will have the resources and expertise needed to connect survivors to the care and services they need.

Sometimes people don’t reach out for help because they’re not even aware that the help they need exists. Last year, I proposed an extensive outreach campaign to raise awareness about the sexual assault forensic exam (SAFE) program offered at various sites, including Stanford Hospital, an expansion effort that I pushed for and which we launched in partnership with Stanford Health Care in 2019.

The outreach plan calls for the development of a user-friendly website with information about the SAFE program, and information kits to be distributed directly to folks at various sites, including high schools, colleges and universities, as well as clinics and community nonprofits.

It’s essential that folks in all 15 cities and towns in our county know that these services exist, how to access them and what to expect from the experience if they one day need to use them or refer a loved one. And while our county often plays a lead role in providing these services, it’s helpful when local partners, including city governments and nonprofits, can step up to help. By working collaboratively, we can pool our resources, share expertise and develop comprehensive strategies to tackle these issues more effectively.

Resources

For information about County homelessness services, visit the Bill Wilson shelter and resource hotline at https://www.billwilsoncenter.org/services/all/here4you.html.

For information about the Park-It Market, contact Donald Akimoto at donalda@wvcommunityservices.org, call 408-471-6123 or visit https://www.wvcommunityservices.org/mobile.

For information about the SAFE program, visit https://health.sccgov.org/safe or call 408-885-5000, and the Santa Clara Valley Medical Center will connect you with the on-call SAFE examiner.

Santa Clara County Supervisor Joe Simitian represents District 5, which includes Cupertino, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Los Gatos, Monte Sereno, Mountain View, Palo Alto, Saratoga, Stanford, portions of San Jose and unincorporated communities in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Sign up for Simitian’s monthly newsletter at district5.sccgov.org/newsletter.