THE SPIRIT OF SAN JOSE

San José houses the greatest number of Vietnamese residents in any one city outside of Viet Nam—estimated at more than 180,000 today. We are dedicated to the betterment of our San José and Bay area communities and have initiated projects that support our mission to promoting the well-being of our neighbors, providing assistance to the people, and empowering them in their efforts to improve their lives, societies, and cultures.

Friends of Hue Foundation as an organization has been recognized by the State Senate of California in 2016 for its dedicated service to the underserved community.  In 2021,  the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors also recognized Friends of Hue for its tireless work during the Covid-19 pandemic.  Our long-time Executive Director, Jenny Do, was recognized as Woman of the Year by State Assemby in 2007 and Trailblazing Woman of the Year Award by the State Senate in 2016.   Her life was celebrated after her passing in August 2022.

Programs At A Glance 

Homelessness Prevention Program  

We partnered with Destination:Home to provide rental assistance to extreme low income (ELI)  families as well as direct financial assistance.  We outreach to English, Spanish and Vietnamese families, perform assessment and distribution of the funding to both landlords and tenants.  We served about 250 families and distributed over $1.5 million. 

Current services that we offer in our homelessness prevention program are unemployment application, rental dispute, utilities assistance application and outreach to help the community understand the eviction moratorium. We work with both residential and commercial tenants, especially nail salon owners for they were hit the hardest with the toughest lockdown restrictions. We have served (independent from Destination Home) over 70 low income families and about two dozen small business owners since the start of the pandemic 

On going “Housing: Did you know?” workshops and outreach to help bring awareness of the housing services by the county and city.  The program helps alleviate the situation by bringing resources from county and city to the people in need effectively and informing the community of the rights/responsibilities of landlords and tenants.  

Emergency Relief Program 

FHF was COVID-19 Outreach Partner of the Santa Clara County Public Health Emergency Operation Center.  FHF was chosen because of its capability to motivate and mobilize community members to participate in public projects leveraging our strong presence and trusted voice in the community.  In addition, we have a team of 30-member Certified Emergency Response Team that is currently providing outreach.  The team was trained and certified under the city emergency response program to support first responders and city emergency centers. 

During the throes of the COVID-19 pandemic, FHF launched the Food Assistance for Seniors Program to provide relief to over 200 low income seniors who lack access and the financial support during the pandemic.  FHF worked with Second Harvest Food Bank and several Asian markets to procure food and supplies for program recipients.  FHF also worked with local restaurants to secure hot meals to the homeless in various concentration points (including homeless encampments) in San Jose.  In addition, we served over 20,000 hot meals in collaboration with a faith-based organization.   

We helped supplied over 1,000 emergency kits to the homeless to keep them safe during the COVID-19 pandemic.   Part of the funding is from the city and corporate grants.   In addition, we provided over 100,000 PPEs (including more than 10,000 N-95 masks) to front line health care workers in the Bay Area during the most critical period of the pandemic where there was a massive shortage of PPEs.   

Neighborhood Resilience Program  

FHF is part of a consortium of four nonprofit, community-based organizations (CARR) that implement the “Neighborhood Resilience Building and Recovery Program”, a program aimed at helping the victims of the 2017 Coyote Creek flood funded by the City of San Jose with a state grant. This program includes activities such as outreach, case management, service referrals, and direct cash reimbursement to low income families affected by the flood. Most of the families are Hispanic and Asian heritage.  In 2017, FHF was one of the first CBOs to response to the flood with our relief efforts of temporarily housing and insurance claim assistance.   

Healthcare Accessibility Program  

Another on-going program is a workshop series focusing healthcare access in order to provide guidance on how to better access and utilize available resources for effective health care and prevention for low-income families in underserved communities.  We organize workshops in Spanish, English and Vietnamese in collaboration with other CBOs in the community. We are a part of a network of 2 dozen foundations and healthcare providers trying to tackle accessibility issues & how to ensure that available services are effectively reach underserved patients in a way that they can best use to alleviate their conditions & improve their quality of life.