hello and welcome to "comunidad del valle." 1,000 homes for 1,000 homeless within two years. how will they do that? plus, are restoring trust in your real' state agent. this is your "comunidad del valle." we begin today with a local winner of the education nation contest, a recipient from nbc. he's here on "comunidad del

val valle." you won a good chunk of change for your high school in the south bay. congratulations. >> thank you. >> so education nation is a nationwide campaign by the nbc network and tell us how you found out about it, and you had to write an essay. tell us about your essay. >> in the beginning of the year when i first started in my broadcast journalism class, which is a pretty underfeunded class, my teacher came across it online, i think, and asked if we were interested, if we wanted to submit an essay. so i took her up on the offer and sent it in. >> what was your essay about? when you're writing essays, you have your topic and you describe it and you defend it and you have to defend it. tell us about yours. >> i talked about how the broadcast journalism program, doing things like the morning news and we make features about our school and also things outside of school and how it's a creative outlet that isn't really looked at much. most people think of maybe art

like painting or the band program or sports but that doesn't get much attention. in my essay i talked about how it deserves as much funding as other things do because there are people like me that's what they like to do in school. >> and it's difficult right now to fund any type of extracurricular program at any school and you brought home this chunk of change. tell us about that. >> it was a $5,000 check, and we used it in the broadcast journalism program to buy new equipment like cameras and editing and computer software. things like that. >> what does that tell you about the abilities of students? you're going to be a senior in coming school year, the ability of students to be go-getters, to go after what they believe in. >> i think students have just as much power as their teach er or any other person at their school

to make their education experience as full as they can get it. i think any student no matter who they are or what they're doing can make a difference it in their own education and their school overall. >> in this business, in tv journalism, there are a lot of entities. you have to be able to give. you have to know people in the community to be able to develop good stories but, most of all, you have to be a good storyteller. because we're story tellers, we have to tell our stories in 1:30 on the nightly broadcast. tell us about the importance of story telling and how important you think it is for young people like you. >> for me it's my biggest source of entertainment. i like to watch a lot of movies and i read a lot. i don't really play sports or anything like that. it's what i do, my free time. i am taking classes at school such as creative writing and ap english class, i took those my last year, and those are my two

favorite classes on the year. story telling to me is an important part. >> you'll be a senior at santa teresa. what's next after that? >> i will hopefully attend a four-year college. i haven't got then everything figured out in what i want to do. i want to pursue something in writing but i'm not 100% sure. nothing set in stone yet. >> maybe the next steven spielberg, he won the nbc education nation essay writing contest. congratulations. >> thank you. >> logon to the website. it's a great website and allows to you see if there's anything you can do or write to contribute at any point to what's happening there at your school. it is educationnation.org. and up next for "comunidad del valle" r stal eagriate entsn our i real estage .ents.

the national hispanic organization of real estate associates the has to build

reputation all over the country. here to do that are the members of nora, jim takes care of the local efforts here in the silicon valley. with us is richard gonzalez, who is the past national president. how to get out of the building crisis and rebuild the reputation on real estate professionals. welcome to the show, by the way. >> thank you, damian. >> how extensive is your work as far as rebuilding that reputation? like any other profeional when there's a crisis, it took a hit. >> it really did and a lot of what we're tasked now is to really rebuild the trust in the community and rebuilding the trust in the community is really done on a grassroots effort. any sort of marketing that you try to do out to the community is really received with mixed emotions because people don't know, unfortunately, in the

latino community if they can really trust what they're reading. and so a lot of our foe can cuss right now is to work in collaboration with the city, with housing agencies to build a unified message and go back out to the community and let them know that it's okay to really trust the information that we're sharing with them. >> and what a coincidence. we have becky garcia with the housing department, with san jose on our next segment. what about these programs that we hear on sunday mornings, they pay a half hour on spanish language radio and say let's rebuild your credit, let's get you into a home the right way this time? how trustworthy or not should we be of these agencies? >> and i think that's really the goal is to be able to arm the consumers with enough information so that they know what questions need to be asked. without having any reference. unfortunately the latino

community continues to trust and take at face value all the information that comes to them and later on they eventually find out what the real truth is so our goal is to put out information again in collaboration with other agencies so the people at least have, the consumer has reference for the types of questions they need to ask so they can qualify those opportunities that are being presented to them on the weekend radio shows and a legitimate opportunity for them. >> do you think, jim, that we're turning the corner here locally in silicon valley specifically, one that i just heard this morning the housing prices are as low as they've been since the crisis began. so are we turning that corner, and are we turning the corner as far as rebuilding a reputation of real estate professionals? >> i believe we are. i have the luxury of having the information from the mls as well and was able to do and analysis over the last 12 years, 1998 to

2011. our median price has actually gone up over that time frame. so we've gone from a $395,000 median price in 1998 to now it's $595,0 $595,000. so it's an interesting time. i think the market in santa clara county is changing. from the perspective of getting the information and turning the market, we haven't really done enough to educate the consumer so that they can build trust in real estate professionals and that's what we're trying to do. >> and we have the dre, department of real estate, but is it up to organizations like yours to kind of police yourselves to say, hey, you know what, this guy over on this corner, don't trust him, don't go there. let's get rid of the bad influences? >> the market has already weeded out all those individuals, but there will always be those individuals that are looking for an opportunity to take advantage and make a buck.

and so how do we prevent that from happening? we begin to establish as we continue to move forward the brand that the consumer can look at as a resource of information. we don't create the information. what it does more man anything else we're a conduit. we identify those organizations that are trustworthy and can really help the consumer make a decision moving forward with the current market environment. so for individuals like that that are in question, the real estate professionals that are members of our organization, we give them a code of conduct, things that go beyond just the code of ethics that we subscribe to as realtors and within our other trades and so it allows us to hold our members accountable and then those members by going out into the community can really convey to the consumer

what that accountability is and the consumer then can potentially begin to identify those folks that want to continue to stay in the shadows which are those folks that will always look to make that buck, and then individuals that are members that want to be visible and want to share information and it will be easy for the consumer to see and differentiate between those individuals. >> so make sure your agent is a member. tell us about the regional effort, you're collaborating here bay area wide. it's a powerful regional effort to make sure that we do things right. >> absolutely. we actually have several different chapters in san mateo, san francisco and now alameda. we recently had an event in san mateo where the latino report card was presented to to everybody. so the hispanic foundation, silicon valley was there, former mayor gonzalez. everybody together because there's power getting into the

community with correct information. and that's our primary focus to get into the community and provide to realtors and other financial members ofhero t the community as well. >> any final thoughts while we show information on the screen? >> the program of the city of san jose. >> we have a partner shship. six families got into the program so we're proud of that fact. >> and housing trust will be our guest on "comunidad del valle" next week. >> wonderful. >> you affiliate yourself with reputable organizations and it shows the quality of the organization you run. thank you for sharing your thoughts with us. >> thank you. and up next on "comunidad del valle," 1,000 homes for 1,000 homeless in two going to e let's see how they're going to do it.

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the goal is to house 1,000 chronically ill homeless folks in santa clara county with 1,000 homes. this effort is under way with the city of san jose. becky garcia and jennifer loven with destination home which deals with the chronically homeless. and let me talk about chronically homeless. maybe the name says it all but these are folks who -- i don't know if the correct word is habitual but they can't get off the streets. >> about 2,000 are chronically homeless which means they have a mental or physical health and have been on the streets for more than a year. >> are they a danger to themselves or the community or just the matter we need to get them off the streets? >> the real itty is that they're suffering. they've been outside for a long time and they're sick and need help. there's a perception that they

want to be outside living in bridges, living on street corners and we think that's a choice. and in national research shows that's not a choice f. we can connect those folks to stable housing with the services that they need that they do well and stay in their housing. not only that it's cheaper than leaving folks outside. >> 1,000 homes, that's a big undertaking. you can't do it by yourselves. you need follow veers. >> we do. we need about 500 volunteers. they'll be serving the homeless, canvassing the streets, the parks, the encampment and lots of training beforehand but we do need a lot of volunteers all throughout santa clara county in every city. >> talk about this effort. it's a huge effort. it's a huge undertaking. how does it look? >> it's doable. we've all aligned and set this common goal of housing 1,000 chronically homeless, the most vulnerable. what i think is so different about the campaign is the whole

public health focus. the we are triaging our resources and we want to make sure we house those most vulnerable to dying on the streets. last year we had 51 homeless die in santa clara county and we just want to make sure we start target i targeting our resources in housing those that need it the most first. >> and in part of our video that we're showing is video of the annual ceremony where we honor the homeless who we've lost in the streets. it's a beautiful ceremony that involves candles representing each of those victims. in a time we're dealing with education cuts and cuts to everything, gas prices and what not, the homeless issue kind of seems to go on the back burner and you are here to say, no, this needs to be on the front burner. address it now. >> it is a fiscal issue so the folks living outside are using high cost public services the most, the emergency room as their primary medical service, taking ambulance rides that are not funded. they might be getting arrested for things that are typical homeless issues like sleeping

outside or trespassing and all of that costs us as a community a significant amount of money when we connect people to housing while housing seems expensive, putting people in housing actually decreases the cost to our community than leaving folks outside. >> tell us about your experiences, becky. i've seen you at the homeless connect events where you invite the homeless and, lack of a better term, spoil them for a day. tell us about the interpersonal contact with them and how they're normal people like you and me, someone who just happens to be -- >> they are normal people and every single person has a story and a lot of times we forget they are senior scitizens, a lo of them are veterans. the great thing about doing the registry week in june we will have for the very first name a by name photo registry of the homeless in santa clara county. we have this many homeless veterans this many senior citizen veterans and they really are people who most want housing. i think there's a misconception

that they don't want housing or don't deserve it because of poor life choices, and we disagree. a lot of them are really sick. >> and this effort, that's why you need the 500 volunteers. >> we do. >> in how many days are they supposed to canvas the streets? >> it's a three-day event but they don't have to do it every single day. it's really early in the morning so we catch the homeless folks exactly where they're sleeping in the streets and parks before they get up and move and can't find them. they move around a lot. it's a three-day commitment but they don't have to do it every single day. >> you have twitter or facebook and everything else? >> we do. >> housing 1,000. housing 1000.org. >> i guess you can google facebook -- >> get it through our website. >> and folks can sign up directly by june 20th. >> all right. registration by june 20th.

we do need the volunteers to go out. it's not a head count, you're actually -- >> there's interaction. and we're going to have a training beforehand so everyone will know exactly what to do and some incentives for the homeless to engage them so they want to answer some very personal questions so there's lots of training before -- one training before so everyone will be well equipped to go but there is some interaction. >> are we trailblazing here? is this something innovative? >> it's actually part of a natural 100,000 homes campaign. we're one of 83 communities that have adopted housing the chronically homeless, that are the most vulnerable. everyone does it the same way, doing a national registry week. this is our santa clara county's turn to do that. >> we're going to share the information one more time. it has a twitter handle and the web address. we do need 500 volunteers within the next couple of weeks so make sure you logon and sign up and you help our chronically homeless folks out in the community. thank you so much for what you are doing.

and up next on "comunidad del valle" the voices of latin rock.

and now here is what's happening on your come could "comunidad del valle." and our salute for those celebrating a special day.

and our address for next week, pick up a copy of our newspaper and support your bilingual week lis. drop us an e-mail or a letter saying who you'd like to wish a happy birthday to in the next few weeks and we'll be sure to get that on for you. we thank you for sharing a part of your sunday with us once again. we leave you now with the voices of latin rock and a song for caeser. ♪

♪ ♪ i wonder what will be will my heart be searching will my soul be free ♪ ♪ as i walk along this land i wonder what i see ♪ ♪ will my children reach the promise of equality ♪ ♪ is it just an ever ending battle of my mind ♪ ♪ is it just a struggle that i seek to find ♪ ♪ like to sail across the ocean seeking to explore ♪ ♪ will i be forever searching

searching for more ♪ ♪ walk across this land amazed at what i see ♪ ♪ i see my brother struggling, struggling to be free ♪ ♪ as i walk across this land cries equality ♪ ♪ is it just for privileged ones and not for you and me ♪

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♪ ♪ ♪ i wonder what will be ♪ will my heart be searching will my soul be free ♪ will my children reach equality ♪