Bay Area homelessness nonprofit offers necessities to ‘reduce stress’

These days, Fred Pena strains to remember the years he lived out of his car in the Bay Area.

Feelings are easier to access.

“There’s a sense of dread,” Pena said in a recent interview, sitting on his bed in a studio apartment on the fifth floor of an affordable housing complex in Santa Clara. “It’s cold, or it’s too hot. And the police hassle you.”

Pena had been living in his gold Honda Accord in Mountain View, where he said he stayed in a church parking lot.

Now, Pena, 63, has his own apartment at Calabazas Community Apartments, which features more than 140 rental studio units designated for unhoused and low-income people. He’s been living there since the fall of 2021.

His move there was facilitated by Abode, a Bay Area nonprofit that helps homeless and low-income people gain stable housing. The building was developed through the organization’s housing arm. Half of the building’s units are designated for chronically homeless people.

Before moving into Calabazas Community Apartments, Pena stayed at Willow Glen Studios on Pedro Street in San Jose, an interim housing program operated by the nonprofit.

Pena, who grew up in San Francisco and fell in and out of homelessness after losing a job at a major phone company in the ’90s, said he’s thankful for the organization.

“I don’t think I could have done it without them,” he said. “I wouldn’t be here without Abode. (I’d be) living in my car, still.”

Abode is hoping to raise $25,000 through Wish Book to provide 125 move-in kits to 125 households. The funding would pay for essential furniture, kitchenware, hygienic supplies and bedding. One household can range from one to six people. Multiple counties would be served, including Santa Clara, Alameda, San Mateo and Santa Cruz.

Brittney Kirkland, Abode’s senior director of health and wellness in Santa Clara County, said the household items are considered immediate needs for people who are transitioning into housing. The home goods help create stability and a sense of dignity for those who were formerly homeless.

“It can really, really reduce stress and anxiety, because once someone is housed, there’s so many things that individual or household wants to start working on that they weren’t able to when they were unhoused,” Kirkland said. “If we can provide them with the things that they need to help them not have to worry about that, that is really going to catapult folks into a better quality of life.”