On a recent late summer evening, the sounds of children’s sneakers clopping against the blacktop echoed across a hotel parking lot near downtown San Jose.
“Yeah, touchdown!” cried 7-year-old Dimmi, spiking a leather football to the pavement in celebration.
Not too long ago, Dimmi, like many of the other children now staying at the hotel, woke up each morning in a tent pitched along a city sidewalk. At the time, the wiry second-grader described to the Bay Area News Group what he missed most about having a home: sleeping on a mattress, eating hot food from a microwave, taking a warm shower.
Then last month, about two weeks after the article published, the man Dimmi calls Dad, Dameon Wright, got a call from a local nonprofit offering them a spot at a city-funded hotel shelter for homeless families. Wright, Dimmi and Dimmi’s mother, Sammi, moved in soon after.
Dimmi said the best thing about staying at the hotel is being able to take a shower whenever he wants. That and the in-room kitchen, stocked with microwave-ready meals provided by the shelter program and a bevy of Goldfish crackers and Fruit Roll-Ups donated by neighbors while the family was still living in an encampment.
He’s also no longer exhausted for school after chilly nights spent in a tent. He now falls asleep on a small cot next to his parents’ bed, often waking in the middle of the night to crawl under the covers between them. “I want my dad to hold me,” he said.
In 2023, Santa Clara County counted 211 homeless children under the age of 18 living without shelter, up from 112 the year before. Last year’s count was less than a third of the 664 unsheltered children identified in 2017, four years before the county started a campaign to end family homelessness.
Local officials and nonprofits have spent millions of dollars to add hundreds of family shelter beds, tiny homes and supportive housing units in recent years, helping to permanently house more than 1,700 homeless families since 2021.
But even as officials appeared able to act quickly to move Dimmi indoors, the ultimate goal of ensuring no families with children have to sleep on the street remains out of reach. There are simply not enough beds for everyone who needs them.
A severe shortage of affordable housing is at the root of the region’s broader homelessness crisis, said Jennifer Loving, chief executive of Destination: Home, a nonprofit that helps Silicon Valley officials develop their homeless strategies. And without significantly more federal money for rental housing voucher programs, she said, cities and counties nationwide will continue struggling to prevent families from becoming homeless.
“This country should never have children living on our streets,” Loving said. “It should be our deepest shame.”
Wright said Dimmi and Sammi became homeless after losing a rented room in San Jose a few months ago after she was fired from a fast food job. The pair moved into her car, but it was totaled after catching fire. When a subsequent car was towed, they were left with nowhere else to go.
After Wright, who was already homeless, learned about their situation, he rushed to move them to a small encampment by the railroad tracks that bisect South San Jose. For more than a month, the family lived beside around a dozen other homeless people spread out along a pine tree-shaded median between the rail line and a busy roadway.
Both Wright and Sammi, who are not married, have mental health issues and a history with the criminal justice system and child protective services, according to court records.
Wright said he spent the first five years of Dimmi’s life in prison stemming from robbery convictions. When Dimmi was a toddler, Sammi lost custody of him for at least six months when she was convicted of misdemeanor child endangerment and being under the influence of methamphetamine in 2019.
Sammi, who still struggles with severe mental health challenges, was initially skeptical about moving into the hotel, assuming the offer to stay free of charge was too good to be true. But she and Wright quickly settled into life among the other homeless parents, who often gather in the hotel’s back parking lot in the evenings to chat while their children ride bikes or play soccer.
“This place is a blessing,” Wright said. “I’d still be sleeping in the dirt right now.”
As part of the program, families are required to work with a case manager to find housing, generally by applying for a federal housing voucher or low-income apartment. LifeMoves, the nonprofit operating the site, is also helping Wright reapply for disability assistance. Wright, 46, used to work in construction but has struggled to land a job after losing his lower left leg in a motorcycle accident a few years ago.
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LifeMoves and San Jose officials declined to discuss the family’s case. However, the nonprofit said the city shelter program provides a range of services, including case management, children’s programs and therapy. The hotel stays range from $79 to $109 per night, not including meals or services. (At a separate county-run hotel family shelter site, officials estimate the full per-night cost, including all services, is $168.)
San Jose officials said they’re currently sheltering about 70 homeless families in hotel rooms, and that there is no set time limit on stays. Last year, the city placed 194 families in hotels, at a cost of about $2,405 per month for each family. Officials did not provide a total expenditure for last year.
The county, meanwhile, rents about 150 hotel rooms for homeless families, in addition to funding hundreds of other family shelter beds. At one county hotel shelter site, a typical stay is around 130 days, though families sometimes stay as long as nine or 10 months. Officials could not say what percentage of families moved on to more permanent housing.
Even as other local governments across the state and country work to expand programs to end family homelessness, thousands of children continue to go to sleep each night without a roof over their heads in California alone. And while some will be helped indoors, others will find themselves forced onto the street again or for the first time.
Wright is determined that his family won’t be one of them.
“This is the best opportunity we’ve had, period,” Wright said. “And I’m not going to mess that up.”
Dameon Wright’s and Dimmi, 7, at their hotel room on Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024, in San Jose, Calif. (Dai Sugano/Bay Area News Group)
Editor’s note: The Bay Area News Group is not identifying the child and his mother, who share a last name, in this story because he is a minor and to protect them from further risk as a homeless family.