KAVYA: “Poor People Shouldn’t Be Dehumanized”

Kavya excels at fixing things.

The Milpitas resident especially enjoys repairing computers and other tech systems. So, it’s only fitting that Kavya has centered those skills on contributing to Abode’s Lived Experience Advisory Board (LEAB), using that passion for fixing systems to bolster our agency in the process.

We formed LEAB to receive feedback from those who have experienced homelessness, to improve the quality of Abode’s work. Kavya is one of LEAB’s newest members.

While transitioning from one gender to another, Kavya experienced homelessness suddenly and unexpectedly in 2022, after being told to leave home. Living unhoused was a scary experience, especially when hearing unfamiliar noises in the middle of the night while sleeping in a car. Other times, police would knock on the car windshield and order Kavya to leave.

Kavya lived without a home for almost a year, bouncing around different parking lots. Attempts to find housing through countless agencies, nonprofits, and government websites yielded nothing. However, that luck changed one day as Kavya placed belongings into a storage unit, where an employee recommended Abode. That recommendation was life-changing.

“I knocked on the door in Abode’s San Jose location and they helped me,” Kavya said.

In less than a year, Kavya moved into interim housing and then permanent supportive housing in Milpitas.

“I was surprised that the system would work that fast and that effectively,” Kavya said.

Abode also connected Kavya to Work2Future – a jobs program that connects employers to participants who have the chance to gain work experience and build their resume. Kavya works now as an IT technician that repairs laptops. Kavya joined LEAB with similar goals, helping to improve Abode programs and the nonprofit ecosystem in general.

“I want to help in whatever capacity I can,” Kavya said. “A LEAB meeting feels normal to me. I do there what I always do – offer solutions and talk about how things could be better.”

Kavya believes that negative misconceptions about homeless individuals and people with low incomes are all too common.

“Poor people shouldn’t be dehumanized,” Kavya said. “They’re wrongly seen as people who made bad decisions when, in fact, people are homeless from a system designed not to help people – a system that seems rigged from the start.”

That there are people who work full-time at minimum wage but cannot afford a home is an example of a broken system, Kavya said.

Kavya also deploys strong organizational skills to assist other LGBTQ+ friends, sending them spreadsheets and Google documents to help them navigate the system.

“I’m a trans person and I want to tell other people like me, ‘Hey, you don’t need to accept this, you have other options,” Kavya said. “My personal experiences – as a student, as a homeless person, as a trans person – can inform people and they can use that knowledge to make good decisions. It’s a conversation that needs to be had.”