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San Jose is searching for a developer to build permanent affordable housing at Evans Lane—six years after city leaders first approved homeless housing on the site. Records obtained by San José Spotlight show the city rejected an offer by a prominent South Bay developer to build the homes in 2016. It could have happened faster and...
San Jose homeless wary of housing at police parking lot
After decades of criminalizing the homeless—often profiling and citing individuals—San Jose now wants to house them. The San Jose City Council announced last October that a parking lot at the San Jose Police Department headquarters along Guadalupe Parkway would serve as a site for temporary homeless housing. City officials broke ground on Feb. 9 and...
Misleading notice scares San Jose homeless residents, may skew headcount
Homeless advocates worry that a misleading cleanup notice has prompted homeless residents along Guadalupe River to leave their camps—days ahead of an important census count. On early Friday morning, San Jose officials and contractors pulled up in trucks at the sprawling encampment along the Guadalupe River Creek near Columbus Park to haul away trash, tents...
Santa Clara County expands homeless prevention services, lacks housing
Two years after adopting a multi-prong plan to address the growing homelessness crisis in Silicon Valley, Santa Clara County and San Jose are making some headway. But advocates and officials say the work is far from finished. Since January 2020, Santa Clara County has cut the number of people falling into homelessness annually by more...
‘They’re everywhere’: Rats plague San Jose’s largest homeless camp
At the epicenter of a humanitarian crisis in San Jose where hundreds of people sleep outdoors, another crisis is festering: rats. “They’re everywhere,” Luke Eblieg, an unhoused person living at the sprawling encampment near Columbus Park, told San José Spotlight. “And they are nothing like I have ever seen.” Brown rats are chewing through electrical wires...
Food truck brings hot meals, essentials to San Jose homeless
In an effort to serve more unhoused people, one nonprofit sends a food truck out to encampments to meet people where they are. Dubbed “Hope on Wheels,” the food truck visits at least three encampments every week to bring hot meals and essential supplies such as jackets, tarps and hand sanitizer to unhoused people across the South...
San Jose homeless residents say nonprofit broke promises
Some unhoused people who received temporary housing after being swept off land owned by Apple are now worried they’ll end up on the streets again. Participants of the program, who have lived in Casa Linda Motel at 1669 Monterey Rd. in San Jose since September, said the program paid for by Apple and managed by HomeFirst was supposed to help...
Advocates push for more low-income housing in San Jose project
A developer is including minimal affordable housing in a San Jose project, and city officials and a community advocacy group are calling for more. Cambrian Village—an 18-acre mixed-use redevelopment of the beloved Cambrian Park Plaza in San Jose— will include 305 apartments, 48 single-family homes with 27 attached accessory dwelling units (ADU) and 25 townhomes....
Nearly one person a day died on Silicon Valley streets
In one of the world’s wealthiest regions, 30 people died in the streets over the span of a month—nearly one person a day dying outdoors in the heart of Silicon Valley. Homeless advocates said the number emphasizes the ongoing homeless crisis—accounting for almost one person per day—and stands in sharp contrast to the region’s wealth....
San Jose breaks ground on affordable housing in police parking lot
San Jose officials and homeless advocates celebrated Wednesday as the city broke ground on a new temporary housing project in a San Jose Police Department parking lot. The City Council unanimously approved the prefabricated housing project last October. Officials hope residents will be able to move in by the fall. “It’s not a secret to anyone that...