Earlier this week, like most days, I finished work in the early morning, around 1 a.m.
My co-workers and I filed out of Dwight Bentel Hall into the quiet and dimly lit campus to begin our trips home.
As the cold air hit us from the warm building we had been working in, I noticed someone sleeping on a bench just outside the door.
Their home for the night, their safety and most sacred space would be a hard wooden bench passed everyday by us San Jose State community members.
My first thought, immediately, was how long would they have before someone called the police, ripping away the smallest bit of respite they found for the night.
San Jose, an alleged beacon for change and innovation, needs to innovate itself to help those most in need of a home because the current policy isn’t enough.
I’ve read Santa Clara County’s 2022-2025 Community Plan to End Homlessness.
They are saying all the right things, as politicians tend to do, but does the county and city actually mean it?
The fundamental issue is that the county and city continue to try and have their cakes and eat it too.
The average median monthly housing costs for the San Jose metro area rank first in the nation at $2,459, according to the Silicon Valley Pain Index.
The Silicon Valley Pain Index is a yearly published report by the SJSU Human Rights Institute that overviews structural inequalities to inform policy and practice in “Silicon Valley” according to SJSU’s Human Rights Institute index webpage.
Silicon Valley simultaneously wants to offer the best and brightest “innovations” the world has to offer but also fails to acknowledge that’s the reason that generations of people who have lived in San Jose can no longer afford it.
The community plan can mention rent control and rezoning land to find more space for affordable housing, but do you really mean you want to create affordable housing when you are courting companies that have only raised property values, rent and made life harder for families in San Jose.
According to the results of a Santa Clara County Point-in-Time Homeless Census, the overall number of houseless individuals counted this year increased by 3% in Santa Clara County (to 10,028) and increased by 11% (to 6,739) in the city limits of San Jose.
I don’t believe Santa Clara County when it publishes things like the Community Plan to End Homelessness, and honestly the county needs to prove that it means what it says through its actions.
Last year, Santa Clara County experienced close to 250 deaths of unhoused people with early counts from this year, according to a Dec. 21, 2021 San Jose Spotlight article.
As of this year, there have been 167 deaths of unhoused people since September, according to a Sept. 24 San Jose Spotlight article.
I understand that COVID-19 has damaged more than we can really account for and has created serious detriment to the job market and access to housing.
This should be considered, however, this isn’t the main problem.
