Two weeks before Thanksgiving, I noticed a new sign sponsored by the City of San Jose in my neighborhood park. “Welcome to Saint James Park,” it reads. “Thank you for helping those in need.” It lists several bullet point suggestions — names of nearby churches and small food banks that offer weekly hot meals and toiletries to the homeless living in the park, and ways members of the community can lend their support.

Last April, my husband and I moved from Austin to San Jose. We moved for the same reason many others have in the past — a better job opportunity. We live in a small, gray bungalow built in the 1940s in an area near downtown where stately Victorian mansions stand in varying states of disrepair. Most of the neighboring houses have been chopped up and remodeled into living spaces for multiple families and short-term renters. Look through the windows and you’ll spot the original crown molding, stained glass windows and crystal chandeliers. You will also see dirty sheets covering entry ways and stacks of garbage supporting walls in desperate need of a fresh coat of paint. Outside, the sidewalks are covered in blossoms of dried vomit, rotten fruit and garbage. The homeless pick through trash cans looking for items to sell, recycle, or eat.

Reams of brown paper cover storefront windows with handwritten “For Lease” signs. It’s not unusual for a business to appear one day only to close a few weeks later. Empty nail salons, abandoned taquerias, and shuttered neighborhood dive bars serve as squats for the neighborhood homeless.

The situation becomes more depressing the closer you get to downtown.

Men and women of all ages huddle in the doorways of empty storefronts. Some live in shelters made of soiled cardboard boxes and dirty blue plastic tarps. Stolen shopping carts are tied together with twine. Some of the more fortunate live inside their cars and vans, parking them outside grocery stores until a concerned neighbor calls the police. The van doors are propped open slightly to let in air. Plastic bread bags, fast food wrappers, and empty plastic soda bottles accumulate outside the door. The vehicle disappears for a week or two, and then returns. The cycle continues.

The situation becomes more depressing the closer you get to downtown.

Just a street over from the city’s center is St. James Park. A woman who’s been pulling out her hair piece-by-piece beats her chest, swings her hips and howls on the sidewalk. A man sleeps on his back, completely naked, his arms and legs spread out over the grass like a starfish, his entire body on display. Another man openly urinates in a garbage can. A woman lies on her back with her legs spread out, her feet in the air, and her skirt raised above her waist. She scrubs herself with a fresh bar of soap given to her by a Vietnamese volunteer. Various dogs on makeshift leashes obediently sit and stay guarding their owners’ shopping carts.

The homeless people resort to bathing themselves in the green and gold public toilets that can be found on street corners downtown. The doors are propped open allowing passers-by a view of the insides, which are usually covered in feces and garbage. Once a week, city sanitation workers dressed in head-to-toe plastic garments use high-powered hoses to wash away the previous week’s use directly onto the street.

Men and women lie on the ground outside office buildings on West Santa Clara Street. Other men and women in athleisure wear, suits or business casual attire calmly walk around or walk over them, busying their attention with an iPhone and earbuds on their way to work or heading over to Starbucks.

Men and women lie on the ground outside office buildings on West Santa Clara Street. Other men and women in athleisure wear, suits or business casual attire calmly walk around or over them, busying their attention with an iPhone and earbuds on their way to work or heading over to Starbucks.

When I bring these kinds of things up at work, I am looked at as if I am speaking another language, and in a way, I am.