1990 CHAM was founded as Student Homeless Alliance (SHA) by Scott Wagers when he was a sociology student at San Jose State University. It brought together students, homeless people, and community activists.

1991 Student Homeless Alliance (SHA) held its first march, the March for Dignity on July 27. Its demands were: Stop police sweeps of homeless encampments. Build low-income housing, not stadiums and luxury hotels. No cuts in homeless services.

1992 SHA demonstrated in front of City Hall to protest the closure of the National Guard Armory shelter on April 1. When homeless people had nowhere to go, SHA set up tents on the City Hall lawn and refused to leave. 13 SHA members were arrested. As a result of this demonstration, a homeless task force was established which ultimately led to construction of Little Orchard Reception Center. In June, partly as a result of SHA’s efforts, Mayor Susan Hammer’s one half billion dollar Giants baseball stadium was rejected by voters. Many voters felt the money could be better used for affordable housing.

On Thanksgiving Day, SHA members took over several abandoned homes on River Street. Ultimately 9 SHA members were arrested. As a result the Water District, which owned the houses, agreed to rent one of them to homeless people for a dollar a year. Six formerly homeless people lived there for almost two years until it was made uninhabitable by the flood of 1995.

1994 CHAM’s marches and protests led to a commitment by the Redevelopment Agency to build a 100-unit, single room occupancy housing development called Pension Esperanza. In addition, it agreed to renovate a 15-unit single room occupancy building (ultimately located at 24 South Fifth Street). Between 1993 and 1997, SHA evolved into CHAM as Scott Wagers left San Jose State, went to divinity school, and became a pastor.

1995 CHAM camped out for fifty nights at church parking lots from August to September. Even though they were temporary, they were the first legal homeless encampments in San Jose since 1990. The encampments were at St. Joseph’s Cathedral, First Christian Church, St. Patrick’s, Trinity Episcopal, Antioch Baptist, and Primera Iglesia Baptista.

1996 CHAM assisted residents of the Guadalupe Parkway neighborhood to resist eviction to make room for a freeway.

1997 In November CHAM opened its shelter at First Christian Church. When the City threatened to fine the church $2500 a day if it did not close down the shelter, CHAM organized a press conference to take the issue to the public. CHAM posted a bond with the church and convinced the church to keep the shelter open. Ultimately, the City backed down and never did impose the fine. As a result of its shelter experience CHAM began to concentrate most of its work on homeless families with children. CHAM provided shelter staffing from 1997-99.

1998 In September CHAM won the first CHAPP rental subsidy program. Fourteen families moved out of First Christian Church and into housing.

2000 CHAM began a Poor People's Campaign. It demanded: Shelter for every homeless family or person who needed it. $5 million for an expanded CHAPP program to get homeless families off the streets immediately. A realistic housing plan to meet the needs of ELI (extremely low-income) residents of San Jose. After over 40 arrests of CHAM members in January and February, Pastor Scott Wagers was appointed to the Mayor’s Task Force on Homelessness in April.

Based on a new Federal religious freedom act, CHAM and First Christian Church reopened their shelter in November after it was closed for fifteen months. First Christian Church began paying a part-time shelter manager. CHAM continued to provide most of the staffing.

2001 In May CHAM, the Affordable Housing Network, and a large coalition of faith, community, and labor organizations won the first significant commitment from San Jose city officials to allocate funds for construction of ELI housing. The City designated an additional $13 million to affordable housing to pay for it. In June, CHAM won an additional $400,000 in funding for an extension of the CHAPP rental subsidy program.

From October 28 to November 4, CHAM, WEAP, the Labor Party and other organizations led the March for Compassion and Spiritual Renewal from San Jose to San Francisco.

2002 From August 26 to Labor Day September 2, CHAM, WEAP, and the Labor Party embarked on a "Save the Soul of America" march and caravan from San Jose through the greater East Bay Area of Northern California. The displaced of Silicon Valley joined those cast aside by the old industrial cities of the East Bay to continue building the California Poor Peoples Economic Human Rights Campaign.

We reject the notion that we have to look overseas to find an axis of evil. The real axis of evil is the denial of food, housing, medical care, and a job at a living wage to everyone who needs one. It is the denial of our humanity.

2003 On Friday, November 14, CHAM, the Low-Income Self-Help Center, and other organizations held a prayer vigil at the Fairmont Hotel for Governor-Elect Arnold Schwarzenegger. Mr. Schwarzenegger appeared inside at a $250 a plate Chamber of Commerce dinner at 7 PM. We gathered in the cold in solidarity with all of California’s poor and homeless, of all colors and nationalities. We called on Mr. Schwarzenegger to exercise compassion and wisdom with his budget decisions, and take "action, action, action" to terminate poverty in California.

Above all, we prayed for Mr. Schwarzenegger himself. In the long run, he will be judged not by the applause of the rich and famous inside the Fairmont, but by how he treats the least of those among us on the outside.

2004 CHAM held a Healing Revival with the Merced Labor Party on a Sunday afternoon in Merced. On April 27, it held a “Health Care is a Human Right” Town Hall Meeting at First Christian Church. In May, we joined WEAP and the Labor Party on a March for Our Lives in Sacramento. In September we rallied to protest the closure of San Jose Medical Center, and on October 27 we led a community-labor rally in support of Proposition 72.

2005 CHAM sponsored San Jose’s first-ever Homeless Convention on September 9 at First Christian Church. Santa Clara County counted 7646 homeless people in one night in December, 2004, including over 1000 children. Our county, one of the richest in the nation, now had the largest homeless population in the Bay Area and in all of Northern California, and there was no reduction in homelessness here since the last survey was taken in 1999.

The purpose of this convention was to "make the invisible visible", as Martin Luther King once said. The aim was to give homeless people a human face and a voice, and educate ourselves, policy makers, and the community about the burning issues faced by the poorest residents of Santa Clara County.

2006 CHAM participated in a Community Health Care Hearing in San Jose on Saturday, February 25 with Congressman Mike Honda at the Sheriff's Auditorium at 55 W. Younger Av. This was part of a national campaign calling for Citizens Congressional Hearings on health care in local districts all across the country. The purpose of the hearings was to collect testimony, put forward solutions to the health care crisis, and build support for single payer health care legislation such as California’s SB 840 and the Federal Conyers Bill, HR 676. In realization of a long-term vision, CHAM embarked with our Central Valley partners on a Journey for Justice from Visalia to Sacramento, April 13-20, 2006. For several years, we had been aware that we had to expand our reach statewide and nationally if we wanted to be successful ending poverty in San Jose. We caravaned from town to town and hold meetings, marches, and rallies everywhere we went, carrying forward the fight for single payer health care and against abuses in the criminal justice system.

On May 1, CHAM put together a small but powerful delegation for the massive, 200,000 person immigrant rights march in San Jose.

On October 26, CHAM participated in the largest pro-single payer health care march and rally ever held in San Jose.

2007 Over 300 people who participated in the Community March to End Homelessness and Poverty on August 27. It was the largest ever demonstration of solidarity with the poor in our county, and was marked by profound unity and enthusiasm. We turned in over 3000 postcards to Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren calling for expansion the Section 8 program, the National Affordable Housing Trust Fund, and legislation recognizing housing as a human right.

We received good coverage from Rosario Vital of El Observador, KTVU Channel 2, and a good Op Ed printed in the Mercury News before the march.

Over the years we have had many homeless marches to end homelessness in San Jose. But true to its name, this was the first time we have ever had a genuine community march to end homelessness. To the unhoused families and people of conscience who have worked with them for years, the entirely new level of support from the community and its elected officials is breathtaking and inspirational.