Homeless numbers spike in some north county cities

Dramatic rises in Sunnyvale, Milpitas, Mountain View

Homelessness is on the rise in Santa Clara County, and not unexpectedly, many of the people living on the streets, in vehicles or along creeks can be found in San Jose.

But new, more detailed figures from the county’s 2019 Point-inTime count show the number of homeless people also spiked dramatically in some north county cities.

Sunnyvale saw a 147% jump, followed by Milpitas with 89% and Mountain View with 46%.

Meanwhile, in marked contrast, the number of homeless people counted fell by 71% in Morgan Hill.

The county’s 2019 Point-inTime count, a biennial attempt to tally the homeless, found a 31% overall increase from 2017 — 9,706 people, the highest number seen in more than a decade. Those living in cars, vans or recreational vehicles rose from 8% to 18%.

David Low, director of policy and communications at Destina

tion: Home, said the counts are “generally imprecise” because homelessness can fluctuate and it’s nearly impossible to find every homeless person in a city.

But still, it’s clear that homelessness is becoming a growing crisis across the county, he said.

“We know homelessness is on the rise overall — whether we’ve enhanced some of the ways to count them or the fact they’re more visible,” Low said. “We’re facing a growing crisis and a growing required level of response to meet it.”

San Jose, the county’s largest city, counted 6,097 homeless people this year, up 41% from 4,350 in 2017. In May, city officials and local advocates said the increase is not surprising but pointed to a need to escalate their response to the housing crisis.

City officials in Sunnyvale and Mountain View disputed figures showing a dramatic rise in their homeless populations, saying that while they’re definitely up, the numbers were undercounted in 2017 so the seemingly sharp increase over the past two years is inflated.

In Sunnyvale, the number of homeless people counted, both in and out of shelters, increased from 253 in 2017 to 624 in 2019.

Marie Bernard, executive director of Sunnyvale Community Services, which is a city contractor and participated in the homeless count this year and two prior years, said her organization has seen a marked increase in the number of homeless people seeking services.

Bernard said the 2017 census undercounted the city’s homeless population, leading to the perception that there was a drastic increase in this year’s count.

“We’re seeing a year-overyear growth. But I think it’s not this huge uptick,” Bernard said.

She said the quality of the count depends heavily on the number of volunteers organizers are able to recruit and how well organizers know the local homeless population.

Her organization saw an uptick in people seeking services — from 620 people in the 2017 fiscal year to 744 people in 2018 — leading them to make a more aggressive push for volunteers in 2019, she said.

“There’s never enough coverage, and Sunnyvale and Mountain View were undercovered by volunteers in 2017,” Bernard said. “Having people who know where the likely encampments are is very helpful because you only have a couple of hours to do this.”

Mountain View officials say the 46% increase in their city — from 416 in 2017 to 606 in 2019 — is due in part to a targeted counting effort this year.

Unlike previous years when county volunteers would walk the streets without direction, for the 2019 count, city staff gave volunteers a map that marked where the city’s homeless tend to stay, according to Shonda Ranson, Mountain View’s communications coordinator.

“We’ve definitely ramped up our efforts in the last couple of years, so we were prepared to see a much higher and more accurate number,” she said Monday.

In Milpitas, which counted 125 homeless people in 2019 — an 89% increase from the 66 counted in 2017 — officials didn’t dispute the Point-in-Time count figures.

“As expected, the City of Milpitas is not immune to the regional impact of the housing crisis and its effects on our residents,” city spokeswoman Jennifer Yamaguma said in a brief emailed statement.

Similar to the overall rise in homelessness across Mountain View, Ranson said the increase in the number of sheltered homeless residents also wasn’t as straightforward.

The number of Mountain View residents in homeless shelters jumped 540% — from five to 32 — over the past two years, according to the county’s report.

Ranson said that’s because the county opened a cold weather shelter in December 2017, which can house up to 50 people, so people who might have gone to other shelters in the region are now counted in Mountain View.

In Morgan Hill, the county counted 81 homeless individuals in 2015 and 388 homeless people in 2017 — a 379% increase. This year, however, the number of homeless fell by 71% — from 388 to 114 people.

Rebecca Garcia, Morgan Hill’s housing manager, said the sharp increase in 2017, and decline in this year’s count, was largely due to “an anomaly” that occurred with the 2017 count.

Weeks before the 2017 count was set to take place, the city’s Thousand Trails RV park flooded, forcing dozens of RVs onto city streets.

Several months later, after the annual count, the RV park reopened, and many of the residents who were counted in the 2017 survey cleared the streets and again found a home in the reopened RV park.

“That spiked the count two years ago,” Garcia said. “We don’t have a significant amount of RVs on the streets anymore.”

Nearly 7,000 people living in Santa Clara County have moved into permanent housing since 2015. But even that hasn’t come close to the demand.

For every person who leaves homelessness in the area, another two to three enter, according to county figures.

“We see this as a call to action to place an even greater priority on how we address homelessness and work to house our most vulnerable residents, which hopefully means an emphasis on the extremely low income and chronically homeless,” said Low, of Destination: Home.

Kathryn Kaminski, a Continuum of Care quality improvement manager who helped lead the county’s homeless census, said she couldn’t speculate on why the survey found such large increases in some cities. But she noted that the methodology of the homeless count hasn’t changed in recent years.

“We are sort of at the mercy of who shows up, and sometimes we have areas people aren’t familiar with,” said Kaminski. “But usually, these are areas that are not highly populated with homeless people.”

Along with the homeless count, the county also administered a survey to 1,335 homeless people.

Findings from the survey include:

• 30% of people reported that losing a job led to their homelessness, while 22% reported drug use, 15% divorce, separation or breakup, 14% eviction and 11% incarceration

• 36% said it was their first experience with homelessness

• 67% said they had been homeless one year or more

• 45% reported having a developmental, physical or mental impairment that affected their ability to live independently.