City of San Jose considers housing homeless along Guadalupe River
Besides prefab homes, residents will help clean and maintain the park
As the COVID-19 pandemic wears on, income inequality soars and housing remains scarce, homeless encampments have multiplied along San Jose’s riverfront — pushing the city further from its goal of turning the beleaguered green space into a destination park.
Now city leaders are considering a different approach: housing homeless residents near the river, while enlisting them to help clean and maintain Guadalupe River Park.
“Can we create something new that perhaps has a benefit for everyone?” asked Ragan Henninger, deputy director of the San Jose Housing Department. “It benefits the homeless person in providing some work experience and training and some housing and supportive services, and it benefits the park in terms of maintenance and beautification.”
A cluster of prefab modular units would serve as temporary housing for between 80 and 100 homeless occupants. It would be the fourth modular housing site set up by the city during the pandemic, but the first to train residents to help take care of their surrounding environment. And it comes as changes to the city — including Google’s new campus and the overhaul of Diridon station — have prompted a renewed focus on revamping the park.
Guadalupe River Park, a 3-mile ribbon that meanders through the heart of San Jose, for years has failed to live up to its potential as a scenic gathering space. Trash piles up along the riverbanks, while tents and makeshift shacks line the trails, a stark reminder to every runner and cyclist of the city’s dire homelessness crisis.
And it’s gotten worse over the past year as the city has stopped most efforts to remove encampments, following federal health guidelines aimed at reducing the spread of COVID-19.
“It’s something that I’ve never seen before, honestly,” said Jason Su, executive director of the Guadalupe River
Park Conservancy. “This is just on a scale that’s just so, so large.”
In an effort to quickly house people during the pandemic, especially as some hotel programs that sheltered homeless residents end, San Jose has used emergency COVID-19 funding and new rules streamlining the permitting process to get temporary housing for more than 300 people built in a matter of months.
Officials are considering setting up the fourth site off West Mission Street near the park, using a sliver of city-owned land and part of the neighboring police department parking lot. Like other sites, occupants would have their own private sleeping quarters and bathrooms, as well as access to mental health care, case management and other services. Ideally, residents also would have access to a paid work-training program that involves caring for the park, Henninger said. But the details haven’t been worked out.
“We’re still in the early planning stages,” Henninger said. She hopes to put a plan before the City Council next month.
Romale Glosson, who sleeps in a parking lot under the Highway 87 overpass, just off the Guadalupe River Trail, is cautiously optimistic about the idea.
“I would check it out,” the 72-year-old said. “You never know until you try it.”
Bill Wells, who has spent 20 years camping off and on along the river, said the housing program sounds better than a tent. But it all depends on whether the site allows pets, Wells said, looking down at Junior, the dachshund and rat terrier mix sitting in his lap.
“If he can’t go, I can’t go,” the 51-yearold Wells said. Nearby were several green garbage bags — part of San Jose’s “Cash for Trash” program. Launched in November as another effort to beautify the Guadalupe River area, the program pays encampment residents for the bags of trash they collect.
For Su, additional help can’t come soon enough. Conservancy volunteers will spend hours cleaning the park, only to see it covered in trash a week later, Su said. It’s gotten so bad that some volunteers have stopped coming.
“People will go deadhead roses and they may find feces or trash or condoms, or things like that,” he said.
It’s a particular concern during heavy rainstorms like the one at the end of last month. The Guadalupe rises and floods encampments, creating dangerous conditions for unhoused residents and washing debris into the river.
In a typical year, the Santa Clara Valley Water District removes about 1,000 tons of trash along the river. Last year, because of COVID-19 concerns, staff were told to stay 100 feet away from encampments.
“That really does limit what we can do,” said Jennifer Codianne, deputy officer for the Watersheds Operations and Maintenance Division. In 2020, Valley Water picked up 800 tons of trash.
The situation is weighing on residents and businesses near the park. At La Piccola Scuola nel Parco, an English and Italian-language school in San Jose’s Little Italy, interactions with unhoused neighbors have become increasingly tense over the past year, said Theresa Sabatino, the school’s founder and executive director.
The school, which serves children ages 2 to 7, is holding classes outside to reduce the risk of COVID-19. But Sabatino often has to usher students inside because there’s someone outside screaming at nothing or causing some other kind of disturbance. People throw trash into the playground while the children are there. There’s been vandalism and people trying to break in.
Two families have gotten fed up and pulled their kids out of the school, Sabatino said.
“It’s frustrating,” she said. “It’s scary.”