Wish Book: Volunteers help find lasting homes for those on the street in Santa Clara County

For more than four years, Angela Montoya lived in a gutted shuttle bus in suburban Mountain View.

It was better than a tent, but the converted airport bus still lacked a bathroom or running water. And to avoid getting towed, she was forced to stake out new street parking every few days.

But the hardest part, Montoya said, was stepping through the piles of trash and used needles left by fellow vehicle-dwellers, worried that neighbors may be watching from inside their multimillion-dollar homes.

“It was embarrassing because I don’t know what these people think of me,” Montoya, 61, said. “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 about a year ago, a community outreach officer with the Mountain View police department connected her with The United Effort Organization, and the nonprofit helped her sort through stacks of paperwork to get on a list for a low-income apartment. One volunteer even took time out of her day to drive Montoya to her housing appointments.

It wasn’t long before she landed a one-bedroom rental in Santa Clara, not far from her job as an usher for concerts and football games at Levi’s Stadium. Montoya and her Doberman Pinscher mix, Lacy, have now been in their new home, decorated with tapestries of her favorite animals of the African Sahara, for about six months.

She has no plans to return to the street.

“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 said. “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, founded during the pandemic in 2020, is a volunteer-led group that connects homeless people across Santa Clara County with a range of services and benefits, from affordable housing and Medi-Cal to job training and computer literacy tutoring.

Claire Hubel, a United Effort co-founder, said one of the main challenges preventing unhoused people from getting help is navigating a host of bureaucratic agencies and systems. The process can be overwhelming, especially when many struggle even to keep their phone charged while living in a tent or vehicle.

So each Saturday, trained volunteers meet with clients at a church parking lot in Mountain View to help fill out benefit applications, refer them to service providers or set up transportation to medical appointments. Volunteers also regularly visit encampments to do outreach.

“We just keep following up, following up, following up to make sure the client is successful,” Hubel said.

By the end of the year, the group expects it will have helped around 600 people. Already, it’s assisted more than 60 clients in finding permanent housing in 2024. Wish Book donations will help the organization hire a full-time employee for record-keeping and to maintain its volunteer-developed databases to help homeless people find affordable housing and benefits.

Montoya, a mother of three, found herself without a permanent home following a string of toxic relationships and struggles with alcohol addiction. She left her children with family and began staying with friends, but felt uncomfortable imposing on them and eventually wound up on the street.

She moved into a tent and then to the shuttle bus, convinced she’d spend the rest of her life homeless. Even today, it’s hard for her to believe she has an apartment of her own.

“I got a chance, and when I have a chance, that means a future,” she said.

Having the apartment meant that this fall, Montoya was finally able to meet her 9-year-old grandson, Tyler, who lives with his father in South San Francisco. She bought him a pumpkin when he came to visit her in Santa Clara.

“He said, ‘Dad, I like this better than our house!’ So he wants to come back,” Montoya said.

With the newfound stability, Montoya plans to start volunteering with The United Effort to help give others the opportunity to piece their lives back together.

“I want to pay it forward because I was helped,” she said. “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
Wish Book is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization operated by The Mercury News. Since 1983, Wish Book has been producing series of stories during the holiday season that highlight the wishes of those in need and invite readers to help fulfill them.

WISH
Donations will help The United Effort Organization Inc., support client services, including helping them with benefits applications, housing searches, job training and a variety of other human services. Goal: $25,000

HOW TO GIVE
Donate at wishbook.mercurynews.com/donate or mail in this form.

ONLINE EXTRA
Read other Wish Book stories, view photos and video at wishbook.mercurynews.com.