Santa Clara County’s shelter model switch leaves vulnerable older adults on the streets

Alma stared at her phone, rattled. She had just received a text from her case manager on Sept. 30 that she’d been evicted from the Sunnyvale homeless shelter while on the way back from work. With nowhere to go, she reverted to sleeping underneath the stairwell of a school.

That week, temperatures reached a scorching 100 degrees, as some Bay Area cities logged the hottest 7-day heat wave in recorded history. While she was walking around Sunnyvale, Alma, who didn’t want to provide her last name for safety reasons, became severely dehydrated. Her feet swelled and she became confused. She ended up in the hospital where nurses hooked her onto breathing tubes, according to photos seen by San José Spotlight.