Homeless encampment remains up — for now
Despite receiving a 72-hour eviction notice at the beginning of the week, the Hope Village homeless encampment in San Jose remained standing Friday evening as officials scrambled to find a way to keep it open.
“We didn’t get evicted,” Peter Miron-Conk, co-founder of the nonprofit Casa de Clara Catholic Worker and one of the organizers of the unsanctioned encampment on Ruff Drive just south of San Jose International Airport, said after bracing for a possible standoff as early as Thursday.
He and several other homeless advocates opened Hope Village last Saturday without permission on state-owned land out of frustration with what they say has
been a failure on the part of government officials to adequately address the issue. On Monday, California Highway Patrol told the encampment’s seven initial residents they would have to go, kicking off a wave of pushback from activists.
Now, it seems encampment residents have received a temporary reprieve while its organizers work with the city, county and state to try to find a solution.
“We weren’t going to come in and move everybody without at least taking the steps to look for and try to find an alternative resolution,” said Officer Ross Lee, a spokesman for the CHP, “and see if there’s a more appropriate location that can be found for Hope Village.”
The long-term future of the encampment remains unclear, although a move appears likely. The encampment is on Employment Development Department land and the agency, organizers and others say, has not exactly been welcoming. EDD has referred questions to CHP.
By Friday, several San Jose City Council members and Santa Clara County supervisors had weighed in with suggestions for how the encampment might continue, with a slew of calls and meetings taking place throughout the week at City Hall and elsewhere. Quiet, tidy and with services like showers and trash pickup included, the privately funded encampment has provided advocates of sanctioned encampments with a prime example of how the camps could look at their best.
Supervisors Cindy Chavez and Dave Cortese penned a memo suggesting moving Hope Village to one of two city-owned locations, one just north of the current encampment and the other at Guadalupe Parkway and West Taylor Street nearby.
But the current location and at least one of the supervisors’ proposed alternatives, near the airport, are in what’s known as an inner safety zone, which the Airport Land Use Commission has said is not suitable for residential use.
On Friday afternoon, San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo said during a phone interview that he had spoken with Cortese about finding an alternative.
“I continue to be willing to work with the county to find a way forward,” Liccardo said.
But, Liccardo added, he was not eager to endorse the idea of sanctioned encampments throughout the city. Encampments raise a number of public health and safety concerns, the mayor said, adding that his goal is to get people into actual housing. Recently, the City Council approved priorities for a housing bond on the November ballot that would put millions of dollars toward housing for homeless and low-income people.
“Fundamentally, my concern is we need to find safe places for people to live,” Liccardo said.
Still, there may be growing appetite for encampments as thousands of people remain on the streets every night in Santa Clara County.
“t is wise to seek innovative, even unconventional, means to fulfill the county’s core mission of serving vulnerable populations,” the supervisors wrote in their memo. “Therefore, it is worthwhile to explore the Hope Village model to determine its efficacy and capacity for replication.”
Councilman Don Rocha — who is running for a county supervisor seat — urged San Jose in his own memo Thursday to find another suitable lot and explore the steps Hope Village would need to take to become a lawful, sanctioned encampment.
Rocha said during a phone interview he recognized the City Council had considered the idea of sanctioned encampments multiple times before with little success, but hoped this time might be different.
“It’s going to take political will,” Rocha said. “I know it takes more than that… but if we have that from this Council, I believe we can overcome any obstacles.”
Councilwoman Dev Davis agrees.
“I really hope we can find a successful resolution to this because I think this is the best idea yet,” Davis said, “and a good demonstration for how to meet the needs of our homeless neighbors.”
Miron-Conk would prefer to stay put, but says if residents are forced to move, any new location shouldn’t create new roadblocks to success.
“Wherever we move they can’t make it more difficult for us to be successful,” he said. “‘We showed that, yes, it can be done and, yes, it’s an acceptable way to improve quality of life for the homeless. Now their job is to get off the stick and help us find a location.”