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One year after a state law aimed at increasing housing supply went into effect, the destruction of single-family neighborhood character that many of the bill’s opponents raised alarms about has not yet come to pass. Senate Bill 9 effectively ended exclusionary single-family zoning statewide, allowing homeowners in some long unchanged neighborhoods to subdivide their lots...
Will San Jose’s homeless count be higher than last year?
Hundreds of volunteers are searching San Jose streets to get an updated count of its homeless population. Across Santa Clara County, roughly 300 volunteers, elected officials and unhoused people ventured out in 30-degree weather Tuesday morning to scour under bridges, along creeks and outside businesses to tally up homeless people living in the region. The...
Alviso resident settles development lawsuit
An Alviso man known for challenging developments proposed in the North San Jose neighborhood has settled a lawsuit with a hotel developer, while ramping up rhetoric against a nonprofit food bank he’s suing. Resident Mark Espinoza dismissed his lawsuit against Milpitas-based Terra Development Partners and San Jose last month after the developer and Espinoza agreed to...
San Jose renters rally for more rights
A coalition of local groups is calling on the San Jose City Council to prioritize policies preventing displacement of renters amid the ongoing housing crisis. The coalition, which includes Sacred Heart Community Service, SOMOS Mayfair, the South Bay Community Land Trust and others, want city policymakers to bolster renter’s rights, preserve affordable rental housing and stop criminalizing...
Thousands raised for blind and homeless Sunnyvale man
Mir Sayed’s connection to the world just got a whole lot stronger. The homeless blind and hearing-impaired senior, who spends his days listening to a radio, received a surge of community support to help him stayed housed after San José Spotlight reported about his potential eviction. The 93-year-old initially had just enough funds to stay...
Sunnyvale gets sleek new City Hall
Sunnyvale’s environmentally conscious and modern City Hall building is nearing completion. The four-story, 120,000-square-foot building is expected to produce enough clean energy to power itself, and could be ready for move-in by March. The new building is going up next to the old city hall on the 26-acre civic center property along South Mathilda Avenue...
Blind and homeless: 93-year-old Sunnyvale man faces uncertainty
A transistor radio, a portable analog device with an antenna, is Mir Sayed’s connection to the world. The 93-year-old lives in a motel room in Sunnyvale and spends his days listening to his radio. He’s visually impaired, suffering from glaucoma and cataracts, and is hearing-impaired. Sayed’s housing situation is unstable and part of the longstanding issue...
San Jose struggles to reduce homeless count
San Jose’s unhoused population is not as big as initially reported, but the number of chronically homeless people continues to grow, new county data shows. A report released last month shows San Jose with 6,650 homeless people in 2022—a drop of roughly 100 people from when preliminary data was released in May. Despite the drop, the current homeless...
San Jose businesses frustrated by homelessness
Reza Farahani immigrated from Iran more than 20 years ago and opened his Lincoln Glass & Mirror business on Kruse Drive in North San Jose. He moved down the block a decade ago when his company expanded, but said in the last two years the surrounding neighborhood has become untenable because of rampant homelessness. Dozens of...
Storm displaces San Jose homeless living along creeks
Geraldo Garcia had 10 minutes to pack his belongings, scramble into a car and leave his makeshift shelter near Coyote Creek. The threat of flooding from an unprecedented atmospheric river storm gave him barely enough time to grab his essentials. “I’m sad. I’m desperate. I really don’t know where to go,” Garcia said, who’s been living...