An affordable housing development near Willow Glen was supposed to give homeless older adults a safe place to live. Instead, a number of residents are clamoring to leave.
Leigh Avenue Senior Apartments, located at Leigh Avenue and Southwest Expressway, provided housing to 63 older adults when it opened in 2021. Seven residents told San José Spotlight they feel suffocated by mounting violations they receive for minor mishaps, like written warnings when their visitors forget to sign out and $25 charges for spilling coffee on the floor. If they don’t pay, management threatens to evict them, the residents said.
“I was not happy from the first day I moved in,” resident Carol Fowlkes, 73, told San José Spotlight. “They’re belittling us. There’s a lot of us who don’t deserve to be treated that way.”
Living in frustration
Fowlkes was one of the first tenants to move in when the apartments opened. Prior to that, she had been homeless for about seven years. She lived in a tent in Gilroy while suffering with a kidney disease, and was placed in a hotel during the pandemic.
“She kept her tent so pristine it wasn’t even funny,” her caretaker Erin Allen told San José Spotlight.
Fowlkes paid a $913 security deposit when she moved to Leigh Avenue Senior Apartments, and later transferred to another apartment in the complex in 2023 because her original one didn’t have an emergency exit. However, she said she never got her security deposit back for the first place, and was charged a deposit fee for the other apartment she moved into. She refused to pay the full amount of the second deposit without getting her money back.
A receipt reviewed by San José Spotlight shows the building manager used $300 of the deposit to clean the apartment, $400 to paint and patch the apartment and $138 for two gallons of white paint.
Fowlkes said she left the apartment in mint condition, minus some nails she put in the walls from hanging decorations. Several residents who were with her when she moved out said her place looked spotless. San José Spotlight reviewed photos of the apartment that didn’t show major issues. Martha Ashburn, the housing program coordinator from Abode, even wrote a letter stating she found both of Fowlkes’ apartments to be “generally clean” when visiting. But that hasn’t swayed management to return her security deposit.
While homeless service provider Abode is contracted by the county to give supportive services, it’s The John Stewart Company that manages the building. Older adults pay one-third of their income for rent.
Abode deferred all comments to The John Stewart Company, which said the tenant’s apartment was not spotless.
“There were many holes in the walls and resident was a heavy smoker which caused damage outside of normal wear and tear,” Maya Powis, regional vice president of the management company, told San José Spotlight. ” In fact, she received violations for smoking and has transferred to another unit where she has continued to smoke in violation of the rules.”
Fowlkes said she had gone inside her previous apartment after the new tenant moved in, and the holes hadn’t been patched. She said living at the apartment complex has caused her blood pressure to go up.
Enforcement of rules
The nearly $50 million apartment development was funded by county tax dollars from Measure A, a $950 million affordable housing bond approved by voters in 2016. San Jose provided an $8.5 million loan to the project. First Community Housing developed the property and contracts with The John Stewart Company to manage the building.
“Like any other property manager of rental housing, The John Stewart Company has rules that tenants must abide by and has the authority to enforce those rules when there are violations,” a county spokesperson for the Office of Supportive Housing told San José Spotlight.
The John Stewart Company manages 16 properties where the county funds supportive services, the spokesperson said. One of those is Villas on the Park, a permanent supportive housing development that had elevator issues earlier this year. Disabled residents were unable to leave their apartment for more than a week after the second elevator went down. The other elevator was broken for months.
The homeless population has grown older in Silicon Valley in recent years. Nearly 30% of the county’s homeless population is 55 years of age and older, and the county has nearly 10,000 homeless people, according to the 2023 point-in-time count. As the housing crisis — exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic — continues to drive up rent and exhaust local safety nets, advocates said more older adults are falling into chronic homelessness, and they can’t get out.
Annette Aponte, another Leigh Avenue Senior Apartments resident, has complained over the years about mice in her apartment. She said instead of hiring an exterminator, management sent the on-site psychiatrist to her door.
But Powis said the property has a contract with pest control services that includes the inspection of 10 apartments monthly. She said the last inspection was conducted on Nov. 22.
“There are no known infestations,” Powis told San José Spotlight. “Resident of No. 407 reported rodent activity to the city prior to any reports to management. Subsequently, the city and pest control vendor have both cleared the unit.”
The residents said the charges are endless. Aponte and others have received bills of $25 for spilling coffee on the common area floor. Powis said there is a clause in the lease pertaining to maintenance and cleaning charges.
“Prior to any charges being imposed, written warnings are issued to repeat offenders and management works with supportive services to ensure the resident is educated on the matter,” Powis said.
San José Spotlight reviewed the lease and it states management is responsible to keep the common areas and facilities in “clean and safe condition.”
“I hate it here,” Aponte told San José Spotlight. “They say this is my home. This is not my home. When I was out on the streets, I had not one (mouse).”
Contact Joyce Chu at [email protected] or @jocye_speaks on X, formerly known as Twitter.
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