Less than 10 months ago, San Jose city dignitaries and Santa Clara Valley Water District officials thrust their shovels into the ground, scooping piles of dirt on a stretch of property along the Guadalupe River once lined with encampments, with the promise of bringing more homeless residents indoors and cleaning up the waterways.
In a short time, the city has transformed the Valley Water-owned site at 5205 Cherry Ave. into a 136-bed tiny home community, marking the 11th interim housing site opened this year and inching the city closer to its goal of tripling its shelter capacity.
“They can get out of survival mode, apply for a job, reconnect with family (and) get access to treatment for mental health care addiction if they need it,” Mayor Matt Mahan said. “Our neighbors can also breathe a sigh of relief, not because we’ve solved the crisis, but because we’ve reduced impacts, and we’ve proven that it can be solved. We’ve given the people of San Jose hope, both housed and unhoused, because for years, Californians have watched homelessness grow. We’ve watched our taxes go up as the number of people suffering on our streets rises.”
Since the city shifted away from the “Housing First” strategy and began allocating more money to interim housing, it has seen massive reductions in unsheltered homelessness.
Although the latest point-in-time count indicated at least 6,503 residents were homeless, the sheltered homelessness rate has improved from 16% to nearly 40% as a result of the city standing up more quick-build communities.
The city began the year with 499 units of emergency housing. It has also opened up tiny home communities at Via Del Oro, Monterey Road and Branham Lane, as well as doubling the shelter capacity at its Rue Ferrari site.
Once the city opens its final site at the VTA’s Cerrone Yard in North San Jose, which it hopes to do around the holidays, it will have added 1,119 beds this year.
“This is almost like a holy ceremony,” said DignityMoves CEO Elizabeth Funk, whose company was the developer of the Cherry Avenue project. “It’s blessing a space that is going to save lives, lots of lives. And yet we come for a different reason that’s more fundamental. We come to remind ourselves that there is an answer to this problem that we’ve come to somehow allow ourselves the complacency to believe it’s not possible to solve: it’s just too complex (and) it’s too multifaceted. Yet, I challenge you to stand here today and tell me it’s not possible, because we’re seeing it.”
Mahan added that once the city opens the last tiny home community, it will enter a new phase focused on improving service quality and system efficiency to help unhoused residents get back on their feet faster.
The Cherry Avenue site is also slightly different from other interim housing locations around the city because it represents a true collaboration among governmental entities, the nonprofit sector, and philanthropists, which has drastically reduced the buildout costs for San Jose taxpayers.
In addition to using the Water District’s property, the site was the beneficiary of $9 million in state funds that were initially slated for a stalled project in San Diego. Philanthropist John Sobrato — who has donated funds to several other projects around the city, including the land on which the Via Del Oro community was built — gave $1 million for the Cherry Avenue project.
The project also received contributions from Good Samaritan Hospital, Connie and Bob Lurie, Legacy Partners, Joe Stockwell and two anonymous donors.
Recognizing that the city cannot tackle the homelessness crisis alone, Sobrato challenged other community leaders and philanthropists to step forward and become part of the solution.
“The scale of homelessness in our region has made it clear that we need both immediate temporary housing as well as long-term supportive housing options for our vulnerable homeless neighbors,” Sobrato said. “Bringing public and private partnerships together, and leveraging every available resource, including underutilized private and public lands, to create affordable and supportive housing, is meaningful and transformative … Cherry Avenue is a great example of what we can accomplish when we come together and find innovative, lasting solutions that bring more of our homeless neighbors indoors and provide them with the support and the services they need to thrive.”