Who We Are
Bill Wilson Center provides services to more than 5,000 children, youth, young adults and families in Santa Clara County through our various programs. Additionally, we reach more than 109,000 clients through our street outreach and crisis line programs. Bill Wilson Center programs focus on housing, education, counseling, and advocacy. Bill Wilson Center is committed to working with the community to ensure that every youth has access to the range of services needed to grow to be healthy and self-sufficient adults; and that our behavioral health department is available to provide individual and family counseling sessions to a community facing a range of social and emotional challenges. Bill Wilson Center has been providing services to runaway and homeless youth since 1973.
Who We Serve
With an emphasis on ending youth and family homelessness, Bill Wilson Center programs focus on building self-confidence and developing personal assets. With these tools, we believe youth and families can permanently change the direction of their lives. A key component of Bill Wilson Center's philosophy encompasses a strength based approach to improving the lives of the youth and young families in our communities. BWC’s staff and volunteers identify the strengths in each individual and family group and build on those strengths so they are empowered to make positive changes in their lives. While the agency was founded to serve youth … creating a healthy, safe community requires that people in all age groups receive the support they need. For this reason, Bill Wilson Center continues expanding its depth of services for adults and families. For more information on Bill Wilson Center programs and services, please visit our Services page.
Who is Bill Wilson?
The origins of Bill Wilson Center go back to 1973 when a prominent Santa Clara citizen, Bill Wilson, Jr., worked with troubled youth in addition to owning Wilson's Jewel Bakery and serving as a Santa Clara City Councilman (1963-1971), with a term as mayor in 1965.
Bill collaborated with faculty at Santa Clara University on a proposal for a counseling center which would combine counseling of students in the local secondary schools with a family therapy program. Wilson's credibility with both the counseling professionals and Santa Clara political and business leaders was an important factor in creating this community-based service.
Webster Center, as it was then called, opened its doors in the fall of 1973. Bill Wilson continued to be involved as an active member of its Board of Directors. He later earned a Masters Degree in Counseling Psychology and volunteered as a counselor at the Center.
In May 1977, after a brief illness, Bill died at the age of forty-one. The staff and the Board of Directors made the unanimous decision to change the name of Webster Center to Bill Wilson Center in memory of this very special person and one of the founders of Bill Wilson Center.
