Silicon Valley street cleaning crew is swept away

A flagship program that employed homeless people to clean the streets of San Jose and connect them to housing is abruptly ending.

Nonprofit Downtown Streets Team is ending operations Oct. 31, citing financial and political pressures that make it difficult to sustain the organization. The nonprofit formed 20 years ago in Palo Alto and expanded to 15 other cities in Northern California, including Sunnyvale and San Jose in 2011. Workers wearing bright yellow shirts help beautify neighborhoods affected by trash, waste and graffiti. Participants also attend peer groups and work with case managers to find housing.

CEO Julie Gardner said the financial and political environment has changed in the last few months, and shutting down the program is a “heartbreaking decision” being made only after exploring other paths forward.

“I wish I could report back a simple, single reason behind our closure, but the truth is it’s the result of many factors,” Gardner told San José Spotlight. “During this time, (Downtown Streets Team) lost several significant contracts and grants, creating a multimillion-dollar loss in overall funding. When combined with other factors, including rapidly rising operational costs, these losses made it impossible to continue running the organization in a financially sustainable way.”

Downtown Streets Team received close to $17 million in contributions in 2024, according to tax filings. In 2023, it had $13.7 million in revenue, and its funding had been steadily increasing over the years. Gardner said she could not provide details on which grants and contracts have been lost or if the organization has a budget deficit due to transition planning.

Overall, the nonprofit has helped 2,211 people find housing and connected more than 2,100 people to jobs, according to data provided by Gardner. In San Jose, Downtown Streets Team helped 264 people secure housing and 361 obtain employment. The nonprofit has also removed more than 11.6 million gallons of trash and debris from the city.

“This is a tremendous loss for our city, not only for the unhoused residents who found stability through their programs, but also for our District 3 business corridors, which directly benefited from their work,” Councilmember Anthony Tordillos, who represents downtown, told San José Spotlight. “The Downtown Streets Team has supported Alum Rock, East Village, Calle Willow and Luna Park in District 3 through weekly cleaning and outreach.”

A Downtown Streets Team employee, who asked not to be named for privacy reasons, said the nonprofit stopped its employment program, Streets Team Enterprise, in June. The program provided homeless people with temporary work through contracts with organizations such as Caltrans, and was meant to be a pipeline for people to gain full-time employment.

“When Streets Team Enterprise closed, it was like foreshadowing for sure,” the employee told San José Spotlight.

Also ending is a volunteer-based program that saw homeless people cleaning up around the city while receiving a small regular stipend and participating in weekly group meetings, meant to foster community and encourage working toward life skills.

Downtown Streets Team has a beleaguered past, with allegations of a toxic workplace and sexual harassment from the former CEO, Eileen Richardson, and her son Chris Richardson, the former director of program operations. In 2021, the nonprofit also settled a class-action lawsuit for $170,000 that six dozen former employees filed against it for wage theft.
Kama Fletcher, who previously worked as director of development for Downtown Streets Team, said one of the most impactful things about the program was the sense of community and dignity fostered among participants when they got praises from business owners and neighbors for cleaning the streets.

“It (created) a mind shift,”  Fletcher told San José Spotlight. “That’s just gone now, all of that. No case manager, no meaningful daily activity, no stipend. It’s like losing your job, losing your family, losing your income all at the same time.”

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