San Jose sanctioned homeless camp set to open

San Jose is opening its first safe sleeping site for homeless residents next week after construction delays.

The vacant lot at 1157 E. Taylor St. will allow up to 56 people to sleep in tents without fear of being swept, and includes eight ADA-accessible tents. The site is meant to serve as a navigation center to connect homeless people with resources and move them into housing within a month. Participants will receive three daily meals and have access to showers, laundry facilities and 24/7 security. Nonprofit HomeFirst will provide case management.

As the city continues sweeping its largest homeless encampment at Columbus Park, it will funnel some people into the safe sleeping site. San Jose is also placing people in one of five motels being converted into temporary housing. Tiny homes at Cherry Avenue, Cerone Yard and the Rue Ferrari expansion are also opening this year.

In total, San Jose aims to add more than 1,000 beds this year, doubling the city’s temporary housing portfolio. Mayor Matt Mahan said the city will be able to lower its unsheltered homeless population to 50% by the time all the shelter sites open at the end of this year.

“Our homelessness rate isn’t significantly higher than cities on the East Coast. What is, is our unsheltered homelessness rate,” Mahan said at a Friday news conference. “By the end of this year, we will be halfway there in the city of San Jose, but the truth is, we won’t reach functional zero, 100% shelter, without getting creative and without a lot of partnerships.”

San Jose has 6,503 homeless residents, up 237 people from 2023. About 60% or 3,959 people are unsheltered. The city’s homeless population peaked in 2022 at 6,650 people. At that time, nearly 5,000 were unsheltered.

The safe sleeping site took four months to construct and cost $2.6 million to design and build. It will cost $2.4 million a year to operate, Mahan said.

“To put that in perspective, a permanent supportive housing development for 56 different units would cost over $50 million,” Mahan said. “Not that it’s either or, but when hundreds (are) dying each year on our streets, we have to prioritize scaling dignity and safety for all.”

Mahan wants to achieve “functional zero” — when the number of people exiting homelessness is greater than the amount becoming homeless —by homing in on short-term, temporary solutions such as tiny homes, safe parking and sleeping sites and shelters. Mahan’s office previously said temporary housing solutions would be substantially cheaper than building permanent affordable housing — without taking into account roughly $234 million in annual operating costs to run all shelters at peak capacity, according to a housing department analysis.

The tents used at the Taylor Street safe sleeping site are ice fishing tents from the Eskimo brand, meant to provide insulation for the winter. While it will keep residents warm during the cold months, officials did not directly respond to how they will protect residents from overheating during the summer.

“We do operate cooling centers, and we’ll have water available,” Mahan told San José Spotlight.

The idea for the safe sleeping site is inspired by a similar site in San Diego that Mahan visited. Homeless people living in the San Diego site filed a lawsuit this week, claiming they live in unsafe conditions and have little relief from scorching summer heat.

“As imperfect as a safe sleeping site may be, it is significantly safer, cleaner and more dignified than the conditions we see in our tent encampments across the city,” Mahan said.
Todd Langton, founder of nonprofit Agape Silicon Valley, said the safe sleeping site has the potential to be successful, but shuffling people around from one place to the next will impact their stability.

“I applaud the mayor and all he’s doing. He’s doing a heck of a lot better job than (former Mayor Sam) Liccardo did on helping people find  transitional housing,” Langton told San José Spotlight. “There’s just so much emphasis on temporary housing. This just seems like it’s a Band-Aid.”

Contact Joyce Chu at [email protected] or @joyce_speaks on X.