Santa Clara County residents participated in a poverty simulation event hosted by Sunnyvale Community Services, gaining firsthand insight into the challenges faced by local families struggling with food and housing insecurity.
Santa Clara County residents took part in Sunnyvale Community Services' annual ' poverty simulation ' event at the service's Kern Avenue headquarters on February 14, 2025. Participants were challenged to step into the shoes of local families struggling with food and housing insecurity. About 60 residents from Sunnyvale, Mountain View, and surrounding cities gathered to experience the day-long simulation.
The organization specifically encourages business leaders, city officials, and individuals enrolled in local leadership programs to participate, said Marie Bernard, executive director of SCS. SCS is a non-profit emergency assistance agency serving residents in Sunnyvale and Santa Clara County. Nearly all their clients live below the county poverty level. The agency has been running the poverty simulation for 12 years with support from the Downtown Streets Team, a local non-profit that provides resources and assistance to people experiencing homelessness. In Santa Clara County, approximately 7.8% of the population lives below the poverty line, and a four-person household earning $137,000 a year or less is considered low-income. One in four people are at risk of hunger, and 9,903 individuals are experiencing homelessness, according to county data. Simulation participants were given new identities and navigated four 15-minute scenarios, each representing a week filled with unpredictable challenges and tasks. 'You could almost lift them from our case files,' Bernard said. 'Poverty knows no boundaries, there's no way you can say it's a Sunnyvale problem or a Mountain View problem.
Poverty Simulation Sunnyvale Community Services Food Insecurity Housing Insecurity Santa Clara County
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