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...
Silicon Valley veteran homelessness reaches new milestone
Flags fly at half-mast each Nov. 11 to honor Veterans Day across the country. In Silicon Valley, fewer veterans will look at those flags while living on the streets. All the Way Home, a campaign launched in 2015 to help end the homeless veterans crisis, has housed 2,201 veterans during the past seven years. The...
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...
How one tiny home community gives San Jose families new life
Tucked behind the old San Jose City Hall, a tiny home community is lifting local families off the streets. A neighborhood of roughly 60 residents in 25 units, Casitas de Esperanza—or tiny homes of hope—is a model of how Santa Clara County can help some of the most vulnerable unhoused people, residents at the site...
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...
Santa Clara County wants options for emergency housing sites
Local lawmakers are racing to build more emergency housing amid a growing homelessness crisis, but where these sites will go is still undecided. A pair of Santa Clara County officials want to use vacant or underutilized lots for a new temporary housing or safe parking site. The plan is to replicate the Casitas de Esperanza...
San Jose increases homeless camp cleaning efforts
San Jose residents and elected officials are frustrated with the buildup of more than 200 homeless encampments. The city plans to clean up some of them by next spring. The San Jose City Council reviewed the city’s ongoing encampment management policy on Tuesday. City officials will come back with a plan to identify encampments across the...