San Jose homeless advocates protest Newsom’s state order

As Gov. Gavin Newsom pushes for local governments to take swift action to clear homeless camps, local housing advocates are standing together against policies they say criminalize being unhoused.

Members of Helping Hands Silicon Valley, Unhoused Response Group, CHAM Deliverance Ministry and NAACP San Jose/Silicon Valley gathered Friday at a former encampment, once known as “The Jungle,” in San Jose to call on Newsom to reverse his executive order enacted last month to clear camps from state-owned land. Newsom turned up the heat Thursday by vowing to cut funding from cities that aren’t doing enough to address homelessness.

“I’m here on behalf of 40 million Californians that are fed up,” Newsom said at a news conference in Los Angeles. “I’m here because I’m one of them. I want to see results.”

Local advocates are calling for no sweeps without providing another place to go, safe shelters and sleeping sites and support for a Bay Area regional housing bond proponents say will create thousands of affordable homes.

“Sweeps are destroying morale, leaving folks without supplies and scattering people about the city to other locations and ultimately contributing to their demise,” Deborah Townley, who is formerly unhoused, said. “The other false narrative is that people are being connected to case management. It’s absolutely untrue.”

Newsom’s recent actions follow a ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court that cities can legally ban homeless residents from sleeping on public property. His executive order made no mention of permanent housing. Advocates say sweeping encampments without offering  other places to go is counterproductive and a waste of taxpayer dollars.

For every one person housed in Santa Clara County, nearly two become homeless. As of last year, the county’s homeless population has grown 3% since 2019 to nearly 10,000, of which 1,026 are in families. San Jose has the fourth highest number of homeless people per capita in the U.S. at 6,340 homeless people. A study cited by the county shows it spends more than $500 million per year addressing homelessness.
Advocates said sweeps have contributed to deaths among the homeless population, which strips them of their belongings and displaces them. More than 200 unhoused people died on Santa Clara County streets last year. So far, this year, 136 have died, advocates said.

“(Sweeping is) a futile exercise. I think it’s just politics and playing on people’s sentiments,” Alpana Agarwal from Helping Hands Silicon Valley told San José Spotlight. “It offers no stability to get them out of homelessness. It’s like punishing people who are homeless.”

Contact Joyce Chu at [email protected] or @joyce_speaks on X, formerly known as Twitter.