Homelessness

Homelessness

San Jose closes safe parking site earlier than expected

San Jose is shutting down a controversial safe parking site for unhoused residents just three months after it opened. The city announced the closure of the temporary safe parking site at 71 Vista Montaña on Monday. The site, which opened in early September, was potentially slated to remain open for nine months. But the city...

The roadmap to San Jose’s Project Homekey proposals

With the recent influx in state and federal funding for homeless housing, San Jose is racing to add roughly 550 units of permanent and interim housing across the city. In September, Mayor Sam Liccardo and several councilmembers proposed a lofty goal to provide 2,300 new permanent and transitional housing units by the end of 2022...

Residents feel stuck at massive San Jose homeless camp

The clearing of a major homeless encampment near San Jose’s Columbus Park has forced scores of unhoused residents to live together in squalid, cramped conditions. Over the last two months, the city has cleared about two-thirds of a 40-acre plot of city-owned land near Columbus Park. About 150 unhoused people, 200 vehicles—of which 53 are...

Santa Clara County student homelessness fluctuated during COVID

The number of homeless students dropped in Santa Clara County during the COVID-19 pandemic, but some districts are seeing an uptick in the number of students struggling with housing this school year. The number of homeless students in the county declined by 13% between the 2019-20 and 2020-21 school years, according to a report published...

Coordinated campaign kills interim housing proposal in Santa Clara

A coordinated effort by hundreds of Santa Clara residents successfully killed a proposal to build interim housing for unhoused families. In a unanimous vote, the Santa Clara City Council rejected a proposal to build 60 units of transitional housing at 2035 White Oak Lane. Councilmembers directed city employees to search for alternative sites. The proposal...

San Jose State offers beds to homeless students all year

San Jose State University students say the school is failing to provide emergency housing for those in need. The university agreed this week to extend its one-semester, 12-bed emergency program indefinitely, but students say they have to jump through hoops to receive services. “Requiring students to take out loans is making it impossible to get an emergency...