Fremont residents protest 2 proposed homeless sites
Protesters unhappy with city’s placement of navigation center
Several hundred people descended on the Fremont City Council meeting last week to protest city plans to place its first homeless navigation center in one of two locations by next year.
In one of the starkest displays of protest in the city in recent years, hundreds of people packed the council chambers and overflow rooms on July 9, while hundreds more flooded the City Hall courtyard, demanding the council locate the center somewhere other than near their neighborhoods.
Fire officials estimated about 1,000 people were in and around City Hall just before the meeting began.
At one point, after Mayor Lily Mei suggested cutting the meeting off by 11:30 p.m., some in the chambers began yelling “shame” at the council, and others outside yelled “let us speak” and banged against the windows of the chambers, prompting police Chief Kimberly Petersen to interject, telling the crowd to be quiet.
The navigation center, according to officials, would be made of portable buildings in which up to 45 homeless people could stay for up to six months at a time while case managers help find them permanent housing and connect them to services.
But the question of where to locate it has sparked heated discussion at public meetings, competing online petitions with thousands of signatures supporting or opposing different sites, and lengthy online forum threads pitting neighbors’ views on the issue against one another.
At the meeting, the council narrowed down the potential sites for the center from 11 to two. After hearing from dozens of residents, they chose to further explore putting the center at a parking lot at the rear of City Hall in downtown at 3300 Capitol Ave., or on surplus city property next to a plant nursery in north Fremont at 4178 Decoto Road.
TJ Mai, a Fremont resident who helped organize opposition to the City Hall site, said he is concerned about safety. He thinks crime will increase wherever the center is located.
“It’s all about my family and people living around here,” he said. “I don’t want my wife walking with my daughter in the downtown area and then getting mugged.”
Many others opposed the Decoto site, also raising concerns about their safety, and about lowering property values if the center were to be near their neighborhoods.
“Yes I want to help the homeless, but I oppose having a homeless navigation center in a residential area,” resident Peter Fong told the council.
“If the city council thinks the residents of Decoto will just take this and accept this unjust decision, then you are wrong,” resident Jamie Zhu told the council. “If you take the most basic needs away from us, then we will definitely take you to court, and file a class action lawsuit for the lost value in the homes.”
Others threatened to vote council members out of office over the issue.
However, Ghada SrourMusselman, a resident who said she lives near Decoto, told the council she supports putting a homeless navigation center at both sites.
“Fremont is a compassionate city; we need to take care of our homeless. They are already living on our streets and near our school property,” she said.
She also said those opposing the centers near where they live are basing their arguments on “fear, bigotry and selfishness.”
The City Hall site scored the highest in a staff evaluation because of its proximity to schools, food services, bus stops and transit.
It is about 1.3 acres and near services such as the Fremont Family Resource Center, Alameda County Veterans Services and Washington Hospital.
It is also within about a half-mile of the Fremont BART station and three bus stops, and within a quartermile of two grocery stores. Washington High School is the nearest public school and there is a private school nearby. Both are less than a mile away.
The Decoto site is also about 1.3 acres, located on a nearly 10-acre city-owned surplus site, most of which is leased to Regan Nursery.
It has “sufficient access” to food services, including a 7-Eleven about a halfmile away and two grocery stores, also less than a mile away, according to city reports. There are also six bus routes within a halfmile of the site. The nearest public school, Warwick Elementary, is less than a mile away, and is separated from nearby homes by Decoto Road and a flood channel.
The city will host two community workshops on the center in August where residents can ask questions of city staff, and the council could choose a final location for the center in September. It could open by mid-2020, officials said.
Councilman Rick Jones said there’s a lot of “information and fear” being circulated and people concerned about the center should go to those meetings to get answers from city staff.