South San Jose tiny homes project long overdue

By next fall, San Jose aims to have a long-awaited temporary housing site on the south side of the city for homeless individuals, though some are questioning why it’s taking so long.

The temporary emergency housing site will be built across from the Blossom Hill Hampton Inn on land owned by Valley Water. The 2.5-acre site will sit on Cherry Avenue where dozens of people are camped along the Guadalupe River. Once completed, it will have 96 tiny homes and offer case management, security and other services to help people transition into permanent housing.

Jim Beall, who serves on the Valley Water board of directors, said there have been too many delays with getting the temporary housing site up and running.

“I think the city and (Valley Water) have not been able to work out the differences despite the elected officials support on both sides,” Beall told San José Spotlight.”It’s kind of frustrating. It’s taken too long.”

In 2022, the Valley Water board directed the agency’s employees to look for ways to solve the encampment problem on its 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 San Jose City Council approved the site for temporary housing with the intention to move those living at the Cherry Avenue encampment into the tiny homes.

Valley Water spokesperson Matt Keller said the initial delay came from wanting to develop an agreement that would prevent homeless people from re-encamping next to tiny homes once built.

In lieu of the Valley Water board delaying a vote that would prohibit and penalize those living in encampments on all 295 miles of its land, Keller said the agency still intends to keep the Cherry Avenue site clear of encampments after the homes are built.

“This will occur through an agreement or agreements that are independent of the Water Resources Protection Zones Ordinance,” Keller told San José Spotlight.

San Jose has a goal to remove all people encamped along Guadalupe River and Coyote Creek by next year. But in order to do it effectively, homeless advocates said there needs to be places to put them. The city’s other temporary housing sites are full.

“It’s a shame. They want to get people out of the creeks but if they don’t have places to put them, it exacerbates the problem,” Michael Morand, who was formerly homeless, told San José Spotlight.

At last month’s San Jose City Council meeting, councilmembers voted to accelerate the Cherry Avenue project, with the goal of opening it by Sept. 30, 2025. It will be funded in part by Measure E, a property transfer tax approved by voters in 2020.

“The city is conducting its due diligence and will send an agreement to Valley Water when all the details of the project have been worked out,” Jeff Scott, spokesperson for the San Jose housing department, told San José Spotlight. “The housing department, public works and our partners are applying lessons learned from our existing interim housing sites to help ensure this site operates as efficiently as possible.”

But Beall said the city and Valley Water should’ve moved sooner on this project.

“That’s my biggest gripe,” Beall said. “I’m kind of worried about resources drying up.”

Contact Joyce Chu at [email protected] or @joyce_speaks on X, formerly known as Twitter.