Founded in the early 1990s, the Student Homeless Alliance (SHA) began as a group of students focused on analyzing the systemic causes of homelessness and advocating for policy changes to address the San Jose homelessness crisis. The alliance started when a student, Scott Wagers, decided to speak with people in the community that were living under a bridge for one of his class assignments. Hearing their stories and learning about their circumstances inspired him to start a group on campus dedicated to helping people just like those that he spoke to, who were overlooked in society and often targets of police sweeps. Scott Wagers went on to become a pastor and continues to advocate for the homeless population in San Jose by working with SHA and other community leaders to help those in need. 

    In recent years, the Student Home Alliance has narrowed its focus from serving the San Jose community to focusing on student homelessness at SJSU specifically, with the number of students experiencing some form of housing insecurity every year only growing. Through civil rights movements, worldwide pandemics, and college tuitions rates higher than ever, students are experiencing homelessness at a never-before-seen rate, with SJSU being no exception.

     Since our inception, SHA has advocated for creative solutions to bringing awareness to these issues and breaking ground for students in need. This includes leading peaceful marches, reporting on the Silicon Valley Pain Index in 2021, holding press conferences, pushing for a centralized location for housing needs, and creating visual representations to show the significance of this crisis in our community.

     SJSU Cares’ annual Basic Needs Survey in 2019 showed that 13% of SJSU students had experienced homelessness for at least 1 day during the year. In response, the Student Homeless Alliance outlined demands to the university in the January 2020 SJSU-SHA Agreement 

( https://drive.google.com/file/d/1c4rLTwNKZjfVzdHSK4ddMzUvj-B41-JZ/view?usp=sharing) which included starting an 12 emergency bed program, improving SJSU Cares practices and outreach, and requiring exit interviews to receive value feedback on the services being provided. SHA is dedicated to seeing these demands through and continuing our fight for the students who deserve more.