SAN JOSE HOUSING

We joined forces in early 2008 during a 12-week symposium called the Community Civic Leadership Program, which is a project of the Asian Pacific American Leadership Institute (APALI) at De Anza College led by the Hon. Michael Chang and the Hon. Ruben Abrica. We united to work on creating this resource about housing issues in the Santa Clara Valley, which have reached crisis levels in California and the Bay Area. We are all invested both personally and in our professional and public lives in the issue of housing. Our constituencies, members, students, and families are struggling to survive as the income gap widens, wrenching the middle class and municipal support services to unsupportable levels. The poor, the homeless, and newly arrived immigrants, meanwhile, have been displaced into the Central Valley, forced onto the street and into overcrowded conditions, denied access to political and public life, and kept in the confines of a subservient underclass. Housing, we feel, lies at the epicenter of human rights and social justice. Its role in the American story of personal freedom and success is not just a representation of “making it.” It is, instead, the very foundation of entrance into personal sustainability and public life. Its accessibility–for renters and buyers–stands as the physical and spatial manifestation of social injustice in California. The landscape, thus, reflects our society’s values and directives along the lines of race, class, and gender.

Bena Chang is a Housing and Transportation Associate for the Silicon Valley Leadership Group. She graduated from Wellesley College with a bachelor’s degree in English and a minor in Astronomy and has worked on the HomeWork first-time homebuyer program and organizing the first state-wide Housing Trust Summit in February of 2005. Bena lives in Mountain View. Contact Bena at bchang@svlg.net.

Tamon Norimoto is Development Director for Asian Americans for Community Involvement (AACI) in San Jose. He helps organize South Bay First Thursdays, a community public affairs forum for nonprofit professionals and government officials in the Asian American community. He serves as Vice Chair of the Housing and Community Development Advisory Commission for the City of San Jose and is Vice President of Japantown Community Congress of San Jose (JCCsj). His board service includes the San Jose chapter of the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL), the California Japanese American Community Leadership Council (CJACLC). Tamon lives in San Jose. Contact Tamon at tamon.norimoto@aaci.org.

Alofa Talivaa serves on the neighborhood advisory committee for the San Jose Strong Neighborhoods Initiative for the 680/East Valley district and on the Sierra Neighborhood Association. She is a former commissioner of the San Jose Housing and Community Development Advisory Commission. She has 20 years of experience in San Jose community involvement, activism, and public service. Alofa lives in East San Jose. She can be reached at Alofaev680@yahoo.com.

Aaron Wilcher is a native of East San Jose and teaches at De Anza College. He has studied at UCLA, the Universidad de Granada, Spain, and Saint Louis University. He serves on the steering committee of the California Studies Association at UC Berkeley and is interested in culture of the urban built environment of the Santa Clara Valley. Aaron lives in San Francisco. Contact him at aaronwilcher@gmail.com.

Photo of San Jose provided by Diana Wells