On Aug. 4, there was a contentious Los Gatos Council meeting about the Town’s “sustaining grants,” money for a specific purpose that’s automatically renewed each year. One of these sustaining grants, totaling $20,000, is dedicated to rental assistance, a community service that provides financial assistance to town residents who are on the verge of losing housing.
Before this meeting 99 organizations that had received grant money in our Town were audited. All organizations were instructed to provide all documentation for grant-related expenses for the last three years. All of the organizations produced reports for the audit, but one dominated the discussion: the Los Gatos Anti-Racism Coalition (LGARC).
A handful of articles were written about the Aug. 4 proceedings, including by the Mercury News and the Los Gatan. Both discuss how two Council members and one finance commissioner expressed concerns about the rental assistance grant and the organizations administering the funds. The Mercury News characterized the proceeding as “targeting” LGARC.
I’m the founder and president of LGARC, an all-volunteer organization that administers a rental assistance program in Los Gatos. Our program is generally respected by other service providers, including government agencies. In recognition of our work, we received the Presidential Community Hero Award for Santa Clara County District 5 and California Nonprofit of the Year from State Senator Josh Becker this year.
Despite LGARC’s audit report being considered “pretty good” and usable as “a template for the other organizations” by the administrator of community grants, two Council members raised additional concerns, unrelated to the contents of our audit. I went to the Aug. 18 Council meeting and addressed these directly. And I’ll do that here, too.
First concern: there are three rental assistance programs in Los Gatos funded by the Town: one administered by West Valley Community Services (WVCS), one by The Society of St. Vincent de Paul (SVdP) and ours. It was alleged that funding three programs is inferior to funding one program. The assumption is that the rental assistance programs are effectively interchangeable, providing the same services to the same population. That assumption is incorrect.
There is a reason why WVCS frequently refers applicants to LGARC’s and SVdP’s rental assistance programs: WVCS’s program typically does not disburse rental assistance to people without eviction notices. Considering that eviction notices are typically issued with a three-day warning to vacate the property—and rental assistance applications may take weeks—there is a place for rental assistance programs that help people before they receive a notice. To be clear, WVCS’s rental assistance program is excellent—I would not be a member of their board otherwise. But LGARC and SVdP consider applications not covered by WVCS’s standard policies. Considering that both LGARC and SVdP are composed entirely of unpaid volunteers, having both administering rental assistance grants ensures that we have more people to respond to urgent situations.
Second concern: rental assistance is distributed through direct cash aid, which opens up potential for fraud, preferential treatment, or (as one council member stated) “going to people’s friends or family.” For the record: we have never encountered a situation where we knew an applicant before providing rental assistance.
Moreover, there is no such thing as rental assistance that isn’t cash aid. Rental assistance helps a person pay their rent. How? With cash. This same Council voted unanimously to create this dedicated Rental Assistance Grant in 2024 to give cash aid to those at risk of losing their housing.
If anyone has any questions about our program or how it operates, feel free to reach out to us by email at re**************@***rc.org. We welcome all inquiries.
Jeffrey Suzuki serves as a Los Gatos Complete Streets and Transportation Commissioner but is writing here as the president of the Los Gatos Anti-Racism Coalition, a nonprofit organization that provides rental assistance.
