County, San Jose officials grapple with rising homelessness

SAN JOSE — The number of homeless people in Santa Clara County is increasing faster than the new county resources allocated to help them, a reality that frustrated county and San Jose elected officials at a joint meeting Monday afternoon.

“We are being hammered,” Jennifer Loving, CEO of the nonprofit Destination: HOME, told county supervisors and San Jose council members. “The amount of people coming to us is extraordinary and we have to have an extraordinary response.”

The county has tried to respond — adding 1,372 permanent homeless housing units — some still under construction — and 1,034 temporary shelter beds since 2015. And county voters in 2016 passed a nearly $1 billion affordable housing bond, Measure A, a quarter of which has been allocated for so far.

At the same time, the number of newly homeless people continues to grow. Last year, of the 4,415 families or individuals screened for services for the first time, 40 percent were placed in some form of housing.

A few months ago, the county exceeded its own goal for housing homeless veterans, said COO Miguel Marquez. Yet, he added, “there are now more homeless veterans than when we started the campaign.”

“We really have to engage the private sector,” Marquez said, rattling off companies such as Google, Intel and Apple. “We have close to a billion dollars from Measure A, we tried to leverage state and federal dollars for another two billion…but we’re still well short of what we know we need.”

The presentation to both boards comes as county staff are assembling the county’s next five-year-plan for tackling homelessness. The annual joint meeting of both governing bodies to discuss various issues became a largely free flowing discussion of homelessness. No decisions were made.

Supervisor Susan Ellenberg called for the formation of a working group to plan sanctioned homeless encampments, framing it as an immediate need that could be met without taking away from existing efforts to produce new affordable and permanent supportive housing units.

“We are failing to convince our neighbors that sanctioned encampments make sense,” Ellenberg said. “If we can provide sanitation, garbage pick-up, security, people will be safer in them and neighbors will be safer outside of them.”

The county recently dismantled Hope Village, a sanctioned encampment near the San Jose airport that was broken up after a county lease of city property expired at the end of March because of federal regulations involving airport areas.

Although county supervisors approved funding to replace the encampment, an alternative site on Santa Clara Valley Water District property was scrapped after intense opposition from residents in the Willow Glen neighborhood.

Another site wasn’t found before the March 30 deadline to vacate the property and the county currently doesn’t have plans to reopen the sanctioned encampment, said Office of Supportive Housing Director Ky Le.

The encampment’s 17 residents were offered motel rooms for a month, and 10 have since been relocated to emergency or temporary shelters. Others left the housing offered to them by the county or chose not to participate, Le said.

In a memo, San Jose Councilman Johnny Khamis called on the county to implement Laura’s Law, which allows court-ordered outpatient treatment for individuals with severe untreated mental illness and a history of violence or repeated hospitalizations. He pointed to its implementation in San Francisco.

“There are people I see all over with issues, drug addiction, things they may not have control of, and people who should have basically been put away because they can’t take care of themselves,” Khamis said. “It’s inhumane not to tackle this issue.”

San Jose councilman Raul Peralez agreed.

“There is a small percentage of our community that all our tools in our toolbox are not going to help,” Peralez said.

Khamis also said the county should consider using inpatient beds Saint Louise Regional Hospital in Gilroy, which it recently acquired, for people with severe mental illness or addiction issues.

Alison Brunner, CEO of the Law Foundation of Silicon Valley, told the elected leaders that both of Khamis’ proposals would “take us in the wrong direction.”

“The county behavioral health services department has a number of new, voluntary programs that are coming online in the near future,” Brunner said. “We have yet to see the full benefit of these services in our system.”

County supervisors have previously asked staff to review Laura’s Law and other strategies to address treatment for the severely mentally ill.

Council member Sylvia Arenas said homeless services should focus on housing families, pointing to the example of parents in drug court trying to regain custody of their children.

“How do you get your child back if you don’t have a place to live, or if the shelter doesn’t take children over a certain age?” Arenas said.

San Jose funds 5 percent of permanent supportive housing units countywide, but makes up about 70 percent of the people served, according to a county staff report.

Supervisor Cindy Chavez said any solutions should be implemented in communities countywide, not just in San Jose, noting that residents in Gilroy should feel as included in any efforts to tackle homelessness as those up north.

Supervisor Joe Simitian agreed, telling San Jose council members they should pay attention to the efforts of other cities, including some of the county’s most affluent, to tackle what is a regional problem.

“I think it’s important the entire county accept the responsibility for what is a regional issue, and because quite bluntly, if everyone is not doing their share, it’s going to fall on you,” Simitian said.

Contact Thy Vo at 408-200-1055 or tvo@bayareanewsgroup.com.