Reaching out across the language barrier

Dear editor,

As of now, Hispanics make up approximately one-third of the population of the city of Napa. Out of those tens of thousands, some have fallen through the cracks and found themselves without a home, and without the wherewithal or resources to secure this most basic of human needs. To be sure, there is a significant amount of these Spanish-speaking homeless folk who are here legally and through some circumstance have found themselves in a bad way.

The reason why we have indicated the race of these individuals is because the city of Napa has employed a homeless outreach coordinator, who is, according to his employer, the Napa Police Department, not even partially fluent in the Spanish language. This is an outrage! Any right-thinking person would know that the city of Napa should have someone onboard its homeless outreach program that can communicate with the Spanish-speaking homeless.

During the homeless outreach coordinator hiring process, the city of Napa knew full well that Napa had a significant Spanish-speaking homeless population, and it chose to hire a candidate who could not properly assist this group that is entitled to the same level of service as the others in our community.

The Napa Valley Register article of July 2 shows progress being made in the area of homeless-related calls to the Napa Police Department (“Extending a hand to the homeless”). That’s great. What is not so great is the fact that there is a knot of Spanish-speaking homeless folk clustered at a downtown park, routinely occupying the same benches day in and day out, and none of them have any memory of having been visited by anyone offering the services that the outreach program has available. None. Other Hispanic homeless that I have spoken with, who are scattered about the town, echo the fact that there is a language barrier between many of those needed services and those who have it. The haves need to see to it that they properly assist the have-nots. The city of Napa and its police department should be ashamed that they are in this position.

Jarvis William Peay

Napa

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