Ex-air base to house shelter for homeless
No drop-ins — facility will serve only those referred by social services agencies
SUNNYVALE — In highpriced Silicon Valley — home to the nation’s highest percentage of homeless people living on the streets — officials recently took on the daunting challenge of replacing a needed winter shelter before El Niño delivers torrents of misery.
And thanks to what local officials are calling a “Herculean” cooperative effort over the past two months, a new shelter on Innovation Way in Sunnyvale is set to open Saturday — but with a hitch: It won’t be a “drop-in” center like the former National Guard Armory site for anyone who wants to walk in out of the cold.
Instead, it will serve only those referred by social services
agencies, and those picked are expected to stay through the winter season that ends March 31. If they don’t show up for three consecutive nights, they lose their bunk for the rest of the season.
The referral system and long-term-stay policy are raising concerns among those it is meant to serve. While many shelters have various requirements for tenancy, the county’s winter facilities have traditionally had more of a first-come, first-served or lottery system for beds.
“There are some people who might be passing through or aren’t involved in an organization,” said Chuck Jagoda, who frequently stayed at the old armory site when he was living out of his car between 2011 and 2013. “Some people feel they’ve been burned by providers who didn’t offer much help or treated them badly. Some are not the type to join anything in the first place; they don’t want to kiss up to anyone to get a referral.”
Already a waiting list
Bob Dolci, housing and homeless concerns coordinator for the Santa Clara County Office of Housing & Homeless Support Services, said Sunnyvale insisted on those conditions out of concern that a drop-in center might attract more people than can be accommodated on any given night.
“Sure, there are some in the homeless community who wish it was a drop-in center,” said Santa Clara County Supervisor Joe Simitian. “But there are community acceptance issues.”
Even so, Simitian said, the new shelter will serve a critical need for the homeless in Sunnyvale, Mountain View, Palo Alto and nearby areas. There’s already a waiting list. Just getting anything open at all was a challenge, and this year’s push has been accentuated by a cold snap that had the county opening its Gilroy shelter last week ahead of schedule.
“Short of defying the laws of physics,” said Simitian, “anything can be done if people want it to be done — if it matters enough, it can be done.”
Figures recently released by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development show that in Santa Clara County, 70.6 percent of the 6,500 homeless people on any given night are considered “unsheltered” — sleeping in clandestine camps or on the streets. It’s the largest percentage in the nation among large urban areas. Los Angeles County has more homeless people per capita but also more shelter space and comes in second. San Francisco has a higher homeless population than Santa Clara County but also more shelters and is fifth on the list.
“To beat L.A. in this case, that’s terrible,” said Claire Wagner, communications director for HomeFirst, the housing nonprofit that will run the center.
She said the new shelter aims to serve those “already on a pathway to permanent housing.”
“This gives them a place to stay while they’re working on that,” Wagner said.
But Wagner stressed that it’s not for people who already have a roof over their heads.
“Just because people have been outside a long time doesn’t mean they’re not trying,” she said. “It doesn’t mean they don’t receive services, that they’re not on anyone’s list.”
Sunnyvale Councilman Jim Davis acknowledged “there are still a lot of people in danger” on the streets, and fellow Councilman Glenn Hendricks said the old armory site didn’t solve the problem either — there are always thousands of people going to sleep outdoors throughout the county.
“There was an unmet need before, and there will be an unmet need when this opens,” Hendricks said. “It’s a large problem, and we need to educate people that the problem exists.”
Dolci said in addition to a lack of beds, the topography of the county also contributes to the number of people who sleep outdoors. The numerous creek beds and little pockets of open space, often within city limits and close to services, lend themselves to becoming ersatz permanent shelters.
“We have a lot of hiding places,” Dolci said.
But those hiding places get dangerous come winter, and nonprofit groups and the county are particularly concerned this year because of the predictions of an El Niño bringing torrential rains and filling shelters to capacity.
“Our outreach workers have slogged through mud to tell people to get away from the water,” Wagner said. “We’ve found them hanging out in trees when the water level rose and their camps were washed away.”
Other site rejected
The decision to use part of the former Onizuka Air Force Station near Moffett Field for the Sunnyvale shelter was made after a host of community objections to another site that was adjacent to a residential neighborhood.
Hendricks said there was some talk within the business community about potential problems with the new site, and part of the conditions of approval include the referral process as well as incentives for those using the shelter to use it nightly through the winter so there’s not a revolving cast of people showing up. The former 125-bed armory space closed in early 2014 and has been converted to low-income permanent housing.
A woman living out of a truck near the old armory site who calls herself Dee said she has a referral for the Innovation Way shelter and is eagerly waiting to check into the new site. She said she intends to be there every night and was disappointed to learn that it wouldn’t be opening on Nov. 30, the traditional opening day for coldweather shelters, because of a delay in getting the water hooked up.
“Five days isn’t a long time,” she said, “but it seems like a lot of time when you’re freezing.”