Story link: Protesters evade shelter-in-place guidelines to demonstrate against COVID-19 emergency dorms for homeless

Student name: Alexandra Rozmarin

Adviser name: Laura Gordon Reska

School name: University Preparatory Academy

Publication name: Aquila

Describe your work on this piece: This piece dives into why COVID-19 homeless shelters in South San Jose are receiving pushback from community members. I saw the protesters’ signs on my daily quarantine walks and wanted to learn more about why something seemingly so important to a vulnerable group would be negatively received by neighbors. With my mother in the driver’s seat, I attended an early Tuesday morning protest, and because of the shelter-in-place restrictions, all the reporting was done from the safety of the passenger seat with a mask. Photos were particularly difficult to capture because of the movement of the car, but the featured photo of the piece ended up being my favorite photo I have ever taken. The content of the piece is timely, so balancing my schoolwork for the day with researching the city’s perspective of the situation was difficult. I will say, laying in my bed while writing the piece was perhaps the most comfortable position I have ever written in.