Homeless in the Coachella Valley: Join us for a special evening of storytelling, solutions

By Julie Makinen

Homelessness, Gavin Newsom said last week, is “a stain on the state of California.” People, the governor added, “are outraged by it, they are disgusted by it, they are wondering what the hell is going on in Sacramento, and they should.”

It’s not just politicians in Sacramento that people are wondering about: Here in the Coachella Valley, too, many people are asking: It seems our homeless population is growing – is that true? Why? What is being done to help people? What kind of assistance, and programs, are effective? Is there anything I can do to be part of the solution?

You care.

We know this because several months ago, Desert Sun reporter Nicole Hayden — who works full-time writing about health and homelessness — launched a series called “You asked, we answered.” She invited readers to submit questions about homelessness, then went out and found the answers.

Among the questions she answered: How can people help those who are homeless in the Coachella Valley? How is money being spent on homeless services in the Coachella Valley? Why did Roy’s Desert Resource Center close in Palm Springs?

We’ve collected all the answers in one place online: homeless.desertsun.com.  

But that’s not all Nicole has been up to. She and photographer Jay Calderon spent months tracking what happened when Caltrans cleared 60 people from an encampment on public land in Coachella — and why, despite the government spending over $630,000, only about half of those moved off the property ended up in housing.

Then, she decided to go even deeper. Nicole received specialized training thanks to a University of Southern California Annenberg Center for Health Journalism 2019 Data Fellowship. Nicole decided that to answer critical questions about the health of people experiencing homelessness in our community, she needed to develop her own survey to ask people on the streets about access to care, their well-being, and problems they are facing.

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People experiencing homelessness prepare to move their camps and belongings off of a large vacant lot. (Jay Calderon/The Desert Sun)

Nicole marshaled help from other reporters in our newsroom. Together, they went to shelters and hit the streets to interview 200 people experiencing homelessness from Palm Springs to Indio.

This is no small feat: According to the 2018 point-in-time homeless count, 438 people were experiencing homelessness in the Coachella Valley during a single night in January of that year. That means The Desert Sun team interviewed perhaps 45% of homeless people in our community, an astoundingly high number.

Her results may surprise you. I know they surprised me.

She found that 86% of homeless people in our community actually have health insurance, and 55% said that dental work is their greatest need. “Respondents reported that they found it challenging to get a job if they had missing or rotted teeth,” she wrote. And, while Nicole found that there are providers in the Coachella Valley who offer free or reduced-cost dental work, from minor things like fillings to larger procedures like denture work, many people aren’t aware that these services exist.

I invite you to check out Nicole’s ongoing reports on homelessness in our community at homeless.desertsun.com.  

I am beyond proud of Nicole's work. But we aren’t stopping there. To truly bring this conversation into the community, encourage empathy, and drive toward solutions, we are putting on a special live event on May 30 at the University of Riverside’s Palm Desert campus.

Please join us to hear live storytelling from individuals including:

• Nora Soliz, who was homeless in Coachella for seven years  
• Julie Hernandez, who ended up at a shelter in Indio when she was in high school because her mother was struggling with substance abuse. She’s now a caseworker at Martha’s Village and Kitchen.
• Greg Rodriguez, a policy advisor for Riverside County Supervisor V. Manuel Perez, who will be sharing his personal experience with homelessness.
• Nicole Hayden herself, who will share stories from covering homelessness day in and day out.

The evening will also feature opportunities to learn about groups in our community that are actively involved in trying to reduce homelessness. Representatives from Desert AIDS Project, Health to Hope clinics, Coachella Valley Rescue Mission, Martha's Village and Kitchen and more will be on hand sharing about the services they offer and how you can get involved.

Tickets are $12 for adults and $8 for students and are available at tickets.desertsun.com. Free tickets are available for anyone experiencing homelessness — simply write to me with your request at julie.makinen@desertsun.com.

This is information — and an experience — that you won’t get from The New York Times, FOX News, or frankly, any other media outlet. No other local media organization is as committed to covering this topic as The Desert Sun. 

If you value this kind of local journalism that’s aimed at making our community a better place for all who live here, I urge you to support us. Tell your friends about the high-quality reporting we are doing. Give a friend a subscription — in print, or digitally. Contribute to our fundraising efforts.

And join us in person at UCR Palm Desert. Hope to see you on May 30.

[This story was originally published by The Desert Sun.]