More Los Gatans using West Valley Community Services

Number of food pantry clients increases for second straight year

West Valley Community Services' 2020-21 Impact Report shows that the number of Los Gatos residents utilizing its services increased for the second year in a row, particularly clients dealing with food insecurity.

The nonprofit — which also provides food, housing and support services for Saratoga, Cupertino and West San Jose — reported that in 2020-21, its Los Gatos client base saw a 23% increase, and town residents made up 18% of the clients using its food pantry. In 2019-20, WVCS saw 169 new clients from Los Gatos and a 17% increase in food pantry users from the town.

“While demand has remained steady and our numbers this year are higher than they were in the year that was PRE-COVID, our rental assistance numbers and our food distribution numbers are among the highest in our history,” WVCS Executive Director Josh Selo said, adding that the nonprofit saw an increase of 2,000 clients across the region in 2019-20 at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

WVCS'S client base also increased in the other communities it serves — by 29% in Cupertino, 6% in Saratoga and 42% in West San Jose.

“In general, our client base is driven most specifically by the amount of affordable housing in a community,” Selo said. “If a community has more affordable housing, there are more people eligible for services. It's also driven by the number of unhoused folks in our community.”

The Town of Los Gatos paid WVCS $50,000 in fiscal year 2020-21 to help residents during the pandemic.

WVCS works closely with Los Gatos City Manager Laurel Prevetti.

“It's more than just funding; it's a real partnership where I feel like the town leadership cares about the residents and it's invested in ensuring that folks can thrive in the community,” Selo said. “The leadership there has been a real pleasure to work with.”

While the pandemic forced the nonprofit to adapt to unprecedented changes, Selo said it also increased WVCS'S accessibility. Now, instead of making a trip to the Cupertino office, clients can set up virtual meetings with case managers.

“That's a tool in our toolkit that will continue, even as COVID recedes into the background,” Selo said. “We feel we need to be as clientcentric as we can. There are already so many stumbling blocks facing our clients; we

want to make things easier for them access-wise.”

Los Gatos' top issues

are food and housing insecurity, he added. The WVCS'S Park-it Market, which serves as a “shoppable” food-pantry at no cost to clients, comes to different locations in Los Gatos every Thursday and Friday.

Selo said many WVCS clients are referred by county or city agencies, and the nonprofit also does outreach at laundromats, coffee shops and homeless encampments.

“I would say part of the

reason that we were so successful in meeting this increased demand during COVID was because we'd worked for many years on these close relationships between all of these different partners to be here for the

community,” Selo said.

House of Hope, the food pantry at Calvary Church in Los Gatos, also saw an increase in clients in the last year.

“We did see an increase from about 80 families to

120 families weekly,” Kristi Gill, the church's business administrator, said in an email. “We also have a waiting list of families who we currently recommend to go elsewhere due to the limited resources we have.”