Every Saturday, hundreds of men and women — many of them homeless — line up outside the church at the corner of Hope and Mercy streets near downtown Mountain View looking for a hot breakfast, a warm place to sit and warm reception from familiar faces.
Some of them still have a place to live, but they’re all in need of the free meal offered by Hope’s Corner, a charitable group working out of Trinity United Methodist Church. And it’s the fast-increasing number of people coming in each week that shines a light on the rising homeless population and the high cost of rent in Mountain View.
Santa Clara County released a report last month showing that Mountain View’s homeless population is going up as the overall population in the county goes down. Mountain View counted 276 homeless people, compared to 139 just two years before.
The stark difference is obvious to volunteers at Hope’s Corner. Back in March 2013, Hope’s Corner served an average of 77 people, and could seat the whole crowd all at once. Since then, the numbers have been steadily heading up, peaking in June at 249 people a week, and volunteers have to stagger seatings to make sure there’s enough room for everyone.
The people who show up each Saturday, most of them from Mountain View, aren’t all homeless. A survey from November showed that about 40 percent of the people who came in are homeless, and the other 60 percent are housed but struggling to keep up with rent and other bills, according to Leslie Carmichael, president of the Hope’s Corner board of directors. Between low and fixed incomes, many of the people have to choose between paying the rent or buying food, she said.
Standing in the small kitchen that overlooks the eating area — which lacks a commercial-grade oven and lost its stove when it was condemned by the fire department — it’s hard to believe volunteers manage to prepare and serve up potatoes, sausages, pastries and hard-boiled eggs to hundreds of people each week.
“The kitchen is kind of crazy in the morning. It’s fun,” Carmichael said.
The volunteers make do with what they have. In order to serve up meals with a less-than-adequate kitchen, Carmichael and other church volunteers enlisted the help of the Los Altos United Methodist Church to cook up and transfer food to Hope’s Corner in the early morning hours.
To mix things up, Carmichael said they try to offer up as much variety as possible, even if it gets a bit unorthodox for breakfast. Spicy curry chicken and green salads are not uncommon to see alongside the typical breakfast cuisine, and nobody seems to be complaining.
“People really like the variety,” she said.
To address the increasing demand, Hope’s Corner started a campaign to raise $350,000 to upgrade the kitchen facilities. With a fixed-up kitchen, food can be stored and prepared on-site, meals can be served three times a week, and a new bathroom and shower can be built, giving homeless people access to a much-needed chance to bathe. With the $140,000 that’s been raised so far, construction on the new bathroom facility began earlier this year and is expected to be finished within the next week.
Other interim upgrades includes a new refrigerator and a freezer, donated by Second Harvest Food Bank, to store the breakfast sausage that would normally cause lots of logistical problems for storage and preparation.
“We were at our wit’s end about the sausage,” Carmichael said.
Hope’s Corner started in 2011, and operates from 8 to 10 a.m. every Saturday, with a few dinner events held quarterly. Volunteer Kevin Thompson, who has been helping out for the last four years, said it’s important for him and others to show up every week for the homeless people desperately in need for some kind of consistency in their lives.
“They don’t know where they’re going to be and where they’re going to sleep,” Thompson said.
Beyond preparing the food, Thompson is Hope’s Corner’s liaison for the Silicon Valley Bicycle Exchange, a nonprofit group of volunteers and mechanics who fix up donated bikes and give them to homeless people in need. For some people, he said, getting a free bike has helped them get a job. For others, it’s a safety and a quality of life upgrade.
“Even for non-workers, it’s better to stay mobile so they aren’t harassed by police,” Thompson said.
At first, Thompson said he intended to only show up once or twice each month to help out, but changed his mind when a homeless person mentioned looking forward to seeing him next week.
“That’s when I knew, ‘okay, I have to be there.’ That’s consistency I had to at least match,” Thompson said.
Healthier eats
Hope’s Corner got a boost last month when it received a $15,770 grant from the El Camino Healthcare District to get more vegetables on the table at Hope’s Corner, including food that can be taken “to go” and eaten after the doors close Saturday morning.
Carmichael said they’ve been making a conscious effort to get people to pick the healthier choices, and replaced things like grape juice after they noticed the amount of sugar in each serving. They still serve plenty of pastries, she said, but they try to discourage people from feasting exclusively on the treats.
The grant money will go towards buying individually packaged salads, Carmichael said, as well as handouts with information on healthy eating habits, which will be developed by the Santa Clara County Department of Public Health.
Hope’s Corner is more than just a place for homeless people to get a quick meal, it’s turned into a place for low-income and senior residents to connect and learn about services that are available, according to Barbara Avery, director of El Camino Hospital’s community benefit plan. Roughly 40 percent of the people who show up each week are seniors, Avery said, and supporting local seniors is a serious concern for the hospital.
“They can become isolated and depressed, and (Hope’s Corner) really gives them a community hub,” she said.
For more information on Hope’s Corner, go to laumc.org/serve/community/hopes-corner.
Email Kevin Forestieri at kforestieri@mv-voice.com
