November is National Homeless & Runaway Prevention Month and Santa Clara County is not immune to the reality of this issue. You can make a difference this month by taking an active role at a pair of National Homeless & Runaway Prevention Month events in the South Bay.

The city’s commitment to urbanizing our communities should be applauded, but the means to house San Jose’s most vulnerable populations must not be overlooked.

The number of unaccompanied immigrant minors crossing into the United States has increased nearly five times over during the last three years. On Tuesday, the county Board of Supervisors voted to further explore ways to help these children.

Foster care youth advocate Sparky Harlan invites lawmakers and leaders to learn firsthand from people who experience homelessness.

Santa Clara County was once the nation's capital for electing women into office. But a look at our current political landscape shows successful female candidates have become scarcer.

On Sunday, Brenden Tiggs, an 18-year-old African American student at San Jose State, committed suicide in his dorm room. According to local media, his dad did not believe the coroner’s ruling, because his son was doing well and seemed happy. While it’s a topic we often don’t like to talk about, suicide rates for young men in the United States are especially troubling.

The beginning of the New Year is a time for resolutions and “Top Ten” wishlists. This is my Bill Wilson Center wish list for addressing some of the major issues around homelessness for our youth.

Stories on the plight of the homeless during the recent cold weather have focused on adults living in encampments. But in San Jose there is another homeless population that rarely gets any attention:  homeless college students. CNN Money wrote about a homeless college student who was turned out of her Midwest school during winter break. Where do homeless students living in local college dorms go during winter break?

A point-in-time count on the number of homeless individuals and families in San Jose and Santa Clara County was completed earlier this year. Santa Clara County had 1,200 homeless youth under age 25—either in homeless shelters or on the street. This was more than the number counted for San Francisco during the same time. It is hard to believe that we have more homeless youth and young adults than San Francisco, but the numbers don’t lie.

Operation Cross Country, a three-day nationwide enforcement campaign by the FBI focusing on underage victims of sex trafficking, recently concluded with the rescue of 105 sexually exploited children and the arrests of 150 pimps and other individuals. In the Bay Area, 12 children were rescued from pimps. While the issue is not new for runaway programs, aggressive pimps going after these young people is now more common. Vulnerable youth, especially those on the run, are often preyed upon by pimps. Studies show that runaways are often identified and targeted by pimps within 48 hours of hitting the streets. Runaway programs need to learn how keep young people safe and must work with local law enforcement when victims seek help from runaway shelters.

I had high hopes for the new ABC Family cable show The Fosters when I saw the first promo. Produced by Jennifer Lopez, the new summer series highlights a new “non-traditional” family with foster children, and I was anxious to see how a foster family and the child welfare system would be portrayed on TV. But, after watching a few episodes, and speaking with a couple of foster kids about it, I have mixed feelings.

There have been a lot of reports in the media recently about teens and children being bullied at school and through social media. Dating violence among teens has been studied for years, but the relationship to online harassment is a new issue.

According to the May 2013 Pew Research Center report, “Teens, Social Media, and Privacy,” teens are changing their habits when it comes to choosing social media and how much information they make public. Parents be advised.

After months of reading about the horrors of sequestration, most folks didn’t even blink when President Obama signed the document ordering the cuts beginning March 1, 2013. Call it “sequestration fatigue,” but the hype leading up to the date was akin to the expectation of all computers crashing on Y2K. While I have heard some pundits call the 2.3 percent reduction in Federal government spending “budget dust,” the cuts target certain departments and programs and leaves others alone.

The Juvenile Justice Commission released a distressing report last week on the newly opened county receiving center for neglected and abused children. Sparky Harlan says the inspection was done just days after the center opened, and while they’re were some extenuating circumstances on relocating the children, most if not all of the issues have since been corrected.

Last week, I attended the meeting of the Redevelopment Agency Successor Oversight Board for the City of Santa Clara. I urged the group to reject the California Finance Department’s move to “clawback” $1.25 million from Bill Wilson Center’s Peacock Commons housing project.