A long overdue agreement between San Jose and Santa Clara County’s largest water agency to build housing for homeless residents has been greenlit and is slated to break ground next month.
The San Jose City Council unanimously voted on Dec. 3 to enter into an agreement with Valley Water to build a new tiny home facility at Cherry Avenue. The city will be able to lease the land until Dec. 31, 2035, with the option to extend it for another five years. The site will house up to 136 people when finished next September, expanding from its original 96 beds. The temporary emergency housing site will be built across from the Hampton Inn on land owned by the water district, where dozens of people are camped along the Guadalupe River.
“It’s finally here, I can’t believe it,” District 9 Councilmember Pam Foley, whose district includes the site, said at the meeting. “I’m just so pleased that we’re going to be able to move the unhoused out of the creek and into these units and I can’t wait for that to occur.”
The overall time from when the process started to completion will be about three years, a timeline Valley Water Director Jim Beall said has been too slow.
“The more you wait, the higher it’s going to cost,” Beall told San José Spotlight. “Now that we got this template of how we agree on things, why don’t we just do some other ones, and do it quicker?”
In 2022, the Valley Water board directed the agency’s employees to look for ways to address homeless people living on agency land. The water agency decided to partner with San Jose to come up with a plan for its Cherry Avenue property, and in June 2023 the city council approved the site for temporary housing with the intention to move those living at the Cherry Avenue encampment into the future tiny homes.
Valley Water spokesperson Matt Keller previously told San José Spotlight the initial delay came from wanting to develop an agreement that would prevent homeless people from re-encamping next to the tiny homes once built. That’s been worked out, as Valley Water and the city developed a no-encampment zone from Blossom Hill to Branham roads. A further work plan will be developed to ensure the area remains free of trash.
The construction of the site comes at a time when homeless people are being banned from camping on Valley Water-owned land and could face up to $500 fines for doing so. Valley Water will enact the policy starting Jan. 2.
The people encamped at the proposed tiny home site will be temporarily relocated during construction and will be given priority placement once the site is ready to open, San Jose Housing Director Erik Solivan said at the council meeting.
When asked where people will be relocated, housing department spokesperson Jeff Scott deferred to Valley Water. Keller told San José Spotlight that while the water agency will be conducting sweeps in early January, the city is responsible to provide homeless people with relocation options.
Additionally, the city is responsible for shelter intake and keeping track of the homeless people who have priority placement into the tiny home site after construction is complete, Keller said. Scott did not provide details on how the city intends to keep track of the homeless people during the temporary relocation period, or whether any city workers will be present when Valley Water begins the sweeps.
The project costs $18.3 million and will be funded with about $9 million from the state and $7 million from Measure E, a property transfer tax approved by city voters in 2020. The city also received about $2.4 million in philanthropic donations. DignityMoves is the developer and will receive up to $15 million to design and construct the site.
The site will have central laundry, private bathrooms and an outdoor picnic area. It will also have case management, security and other services to help people transition into permanent housing. The city has not chosen who will be the service provider. Once the site is up and running, it will cost about $5 million annually to operate, or $37,500 per bed.
Mayor Matt Mahan wants to add 784 beds over the next year to tackle the homelessness crisis. The beds will be spread across five tiny home locations: Via Del Oro, Cerone Yard, Cherry Avenue, Branham and Monterey Road and an expanded Rue Ferrari. The city currently has approximately 500 beds across its six tiny home sites.
“I think it’s a great example of the two agencies working together to help solve the homeless crisis,” Todd Langton, executive director of Agape Silicon Valley, told San José Spotlight. “It’s still way too little and hopefully not too late. We need hundreds, if not thousands more (shelter beds). We need to cut the red tape between the agencies and make this happen sooner and quicker and bigger.”
Contact Joyce Chu at [email protected] or @joyce_speaks on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.