A potential sanctioned encampment for homeless individuals near San Jose’s Watson Park has some neighbors upset with what they perceive as a lack of outreach.
City officials have zeroed in on the first potential safe sleeping site at 1157 E. Taylor St., which could open as early as the beginning of next year with other sites to follow. Representatives from the offices of Mayor Matt Mahan and Councilmember Omar Torres canvassed the neighborhood in September to notify residents of the city’s plans. However, some residents said city workers never made direct contact with them.
“There was no outreach,” a neighbor who asked not to be named for privacy reasons told San José Spotlight. “I found a flier in a rosemary bush next to the side wall despite living across the street from the park. My security camera shows no attempt to ring my doorbell on the date the fliers were distributed.”
The resident said communication from the city and Torres’ District 3 office has been poor, and she is worried because the park is prone to fires. She said 911 calls in the past have gone unanswered.
“Omar has failed to talk to the community to outline the success metrics and rules for the safe sleeping site,” the resident said. “Our requests for the feasibility study have gone unanswered. If he had been an effective communicator, there wouldn’t be such an uproar now.”
Torres told San José Spotlight he and his team have been engaging with residents through email, phone calls, social media and canvassing.
“We knocked on their door and if folks were not home or didn’t answer, we left a flier,” Torres said. “I only have a team of five and we would have loved to talk to more residents.”
A spokesperson from the mayor’s team said they and Torres’ team have canvassed about 450 homes and outreach is ongoing. So far they have canvassed 19th, 20th, 21st, 22nd and 23rd streets between Washington and East Mission streets. They also went to the cul-de-sacs on Terrace and Monferino drives, the spokesperson told San José Spotlight.
Since the outreach, reactions to the proposed safe sleeping site have been mixed. Some residents have been vocal on social media in opposition to the plan.
“We believe that the proposed camp location at Watson Park poses significant risks to our community,” a statement released to San José Spotlight by the Watson Park Facebook group said. “We lack confidence that the city’s management of this site will implement the necessary safeguards to prevent foreseeable issues, especially given its proximity to Empire Garden Elementary School and the adjacent youth soccer field.”
Others are in favor of it, but want to see the city manage the site with guardrails and metrics in place.
“We have a humanitarian crisis, a human health crisis, an environmental crisis with the water and an incredible air quality crisis. So there has to be a quick solution,” resident Irene Smith told San José Spotlight. “And there can be, but it has to be organized.”
Smith, who ran against Torres for the District 3 San Jose City Council seat in 2022, wants there to be an end date with the safe sleeping site to ensure it’s a temporary measure. She wants there to be adequate security and services at the site, and no tolerance for weapons or combustibles.
“Otherwise you are dealing with a lawless situation,” Smith said. “The majority (of homeless residents) don’t want to be there under lawless situations. It behooves us to have success metrics, commitments to community from the city and laws that are applied equally to the housed and unhoused. That in turn can make the neighborhood safer.”
The city owns about 0.7 acres of the proposed site north of East Taylor Street and is in the process of acquiring another 1.57 acres south of the location by next month. Lighting, electrical power and portable water connections still need to be added. The site could potentially hold up to 220 tents, according to information shared by a city spokesperson.
The site has passed the first phase of environmental assessment, which looked for things such as hazardous substances in the soil. Other screenings are still in the works to analyze noise, site restrictions, cost of construction and more.
“Because of the urgency of this work, we’re doing many things at the same time, so that we can get to the end point faster,” Public Works Director Matthew Loesch told San José Spotlight. “The site is still viable for us to keep building. Nothing has popped up in our reviews or studies (to show) that it is not a viable site.”
Torres plans to hold a community meeting Oct. 10 at 7 p.m. at the Joyce Ellington Branch Library, and an invitation will be sent out in the coming weeks. After the meeting, his team plans to set up a community advisory council for the site.
“It’s always important to make sure that we have people at the table making these decisions, and the conversations obviously are going to be tough,” Torres said.
Contact Joyce Chu at [email protected] or follow @joyce_speaks on X, formerly known Twitter.
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