San Jose Mayor Wants Safe Sleeping Sites For Homeless Residents

San Jose Spotlight

June 20, 2024

San Jose officials are set to give hundreds of homeless residents designated places to sleep outside without the fear of being swept.

The San Jose City Council on Tuesday will weigh signing off on nine safe sleeping sites for the city’s most vulnerable residents, most notably the estimated 500 people living along the waterways who need to be cleared to address pollution. Mayor Matt Mahan met with homeless and environmental advocates at the Guadalupe River Trail on Monday and spoke about safe sleeping sites as the group walked through a portion peppered with trash and tents. He told San José Spotlight he wants 100 to 200 tents per site built on public land or land the city can lease, and possibly build on private land in the future.

“We’ve got thousands of people living out on our streets and in our creeks without any support,” Mahan said on Monday. “People need some basic structure and supportive services. And we have a responsibility for providing that.”

Mahan wants to move the creek dwellers into safe sleeping sites around the city. He said these outdoor managed environments will have some services, such as basic security, washing areas and toilets, meals and access to case management.

“It’s not the end goal, but it could be a meaningful improvement for those who are living outdoors and for our environment and for the whole community,” Mahan said.

San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan wants to move creek dwellers into safe sleeping sites around the city. Photo by Joyce Chu/San Jose Spotlight

The city could spend $15 million on safe sleeping sites over the next two years, taken from Measure E, a property transfer tax approved by voters in 2020. The funds will be used to design, build and operate the sanctioned tent sites, costing anywhere from $18,000 to $40,000 per tent, or $9 million to $20 million for 500 tents.

Three-fourths of Measure E funds were intended to be used for affordable housing construction, with 25% going to homelessness prevention, rental assistance and shelters. However, councilmembers voted last week to shift about $25 million toward clearing the waterways and creating interim housing for homeless residents, leaving $11 million for building affordable homes this fiscal year.

San Jose has 6,340 unhoused residents, 4,411 of whom live on the street, along rivers or in tents, according to the county’s 2023 biennial count of homeless people. This number doesn’t paint the full picture of homelessness in the city, as it only measures people experiencing homelessness on a single night. The survey is often considered an undercount.

Despite previous councils voting down the idea in 2015 and 2021, Mahan said safe sleeping sites are essential to keep the waterways free of trash and fulfill obligations for continued stormwater permit approval.

“The obligations we have under the Clean Water Act is to get to zero discharge,” Mahan said. “We simply don’t have the money today or the sites or the time to wait to build a brand new apartment for everyone.”

Property owners living near proposed safe sleeping sites have opposed them, including Willow Glen residents who protested turning a vacant lot in their neighborhood into a city-sanctioned homeless camp for fear of being threatened by homeless individuals or having their cars broken into.

Michael Morand, who was formerly homeless, previously told San José Spotlight he wouldn’t want to stay at a safe sleeping site.

“I think there needs to be some action done with regards to getting people into humane facilities, whether it be a shelter or hotel rooms, like where I’m at,” he said. “Mixing people that have challenges with substance abuse or alcoholism or mental illness with people that don’t have those challenges, I don’t think is an effective way to handle the homelessness crisis.”

Todd Langton, executive director of homelessness nonprofit Agape Silicon Valley, believes that safe sleeping sites are necessary to solve the homelessness crisis in the city as a segway into permanent housing.

“If we don’t get this transitional housing and these sanctioned encampments, our unhoused are not going to be alive to enjoy that permanent housing,” Langton said. “We need to treat this like the crisis it is. We can do better. What does it say about our society that we allow this and we propagate this and we let this continue on?”

The San Jose City Council meets Tuesday at 11 a.m. Learn how to watch and participate.

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