English
Spanish
Vietnamese
One of San Jose’s largest business groups wants homeless people off its streets, and here’s it’s pitch to make that happen. San Jose Downtown Association Executive Director Scott Knies floated the idea of creating a social services team to focus on the homeless population. “What is clear to all of us in the trenches is...
San Jose District 10 residents petition to house homeless elsewhere
San Jose residents near a proposed emergency interim housing site at Branham Lane and Monterey Road want the 176 units to be built elsewhere. The site, which is currently a homeless encampment, has long been a source of tension in the neighborhood. It’s one of several proposed sites awaiting Project Homekey funding. The city-owned housing...
San Jose housing on highway cloverleafs might not be a lucky charm
As San Jose scrambles to find new sites for homeless housing, its latest idea might leave residents scratching their heads—using extra land by highway on-ramps or cloverleaf interchanges. “We have to be very creative,” Mayor Sam Liccardo said at a housing news conference earlier this month. “We’re going to try to find that land in every...
San Jose business group floats fee for homeless trash solutions
Fed up with trash and vandalism downtown, one San Jose business group wants to lobby the city and county to help with its cleanup efforts. Scott Knies, executive director of the San Jose Downtown Association, a consortium of businesses located in the heart of the city, floated what he calls a “clean community fee” on...
Some skeptical of San Jose’s plan to ‘end’ homelessness
Santa Clara County has a lofty new goal to “end” homelessness by 2025 but some unhoused residents aren’t convinced. The effort, called “Heading Home,” is part of a multipronged approach by Santa Clara County, San Jose, the Santa Clara County Housing Authority, tech company Cisco and homeless policy nonprofit Destination: Home—some of the region’s biggest...
UPDATE: Homeless housing site coming to San Jose police headquarters
San Jose’s quest to find more affordable housing sites has brought it to approve an unorthodox piece of real estate: a San Jose police parking lot. The San Jose City Council unanimously approved Tuesday a prefabricated housing project in a parking lot at the San Jose Police Department headquarters along Guadalupe Parkway. It will include...
San Jose pushes ahead to convert hotels to housing
San Jose wants to pay $113 million to convert four hotels into housing to help solve its homelessness crisis. Funding is expected to come from the state’s Project Homekey program, which subsidizes emergency housing run by local governments and nonprofits. Applications opened Sept. 30, and individual funding may be awarded as soon as 45 days after...
State orders San Jose to halt implementing hotel rent
San Jose’s Housing Department violated a state agreement by setting monthly rents too high for formerly unhoused residents living at the SureStay Hotel. Now the city needs to recalculate. In April 2020, homeless residents vulnerable to COVID-19 received free emergency shelter in hotels across Santa Clara County through Project Homekey—the state program subsidizing emergency housing run by local governments and nonprofits. After...
San Jose plans dynamic initiative to house and employ homeless
Responding to the growing homeless crisis, San Jose has ambitious plans to shelter and employ thousands of unhoused residents within the next five years. The Rules and Open Government Committee voted unanimously Wednesday to recommend the City Council support a housing blueprint and efforts to employ homeless residents to clean up the city. The council...
San Jose squashes proposal for prefab homeless housing
The week started with San Jose Councilmember Matt Mahan announcing an ambitious proposal for housing up to 5,000 homeless residents on public land by the end of next year. His colleagues killed the plan before the week was out. Mahan told San José Spotlight he’s disappointed by the outcome of Wednesday’s Rules and Open Government Committee meeting,...