Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors approved the construction of 200 units of low-income housing by Coyote Creek in a 12-0 unanimous vote.
“We (the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority’s (VTA) board) have an opportunity and obligation, I think, to protect the weakest in our community and that is what we're doing tonight,” said Cindy Chavez, supervisor of District Two in Santa Clara County.
On Sept. 7, the board agreed to lease the land, but to also have another meeting on Thursday to approve construction.
Chavez said the 200 units will be built at Cerone Yard, a yard with around 7.2 acres of land located next to one of VTA’s stations by Coyote Creek.
She said the yard will only be able to house a maximum of 200 individuals and will have supportive services, including drug and alcohol rehabilitation services, group services and transportation services.
Chavez said Cerone Yard will be used as a low-income housing site for five years until VTA will use the land to further expand its transportation services.
Lydia Engdol, lifelong resident of San José, said she believes this proposal will give those living with severe mental disabilities a place to get medication, food, shelter, caseworkers and other resources.
Engdol said she came to the meeting to put a face to the problems of homelessness.
“I have a son who's 54 years old, living on the streets for the last 20 years, the schizophrenia paradigm,” Engdol said.
She said her son has not been able to find a place to house him and to give him medication.
Engdol said he is usually picked up by Valley Medical Center staff and is given medication until he is forced to leave the hospital.
“I asked them, ‘Why, why don’t you just keep him’ and they say, ‘Well, it's not a crime to be crazy. We can't force a person to stay and get to just live here or find them to help if they don’t want it,’ ” Engdol said.
David Cohen, San José’s representative for District Four, said he’s excited to have the district build its first low-income housing site.
Cohen said District Four has one of the highest rates of houselessness in San José, but it doesn’t have a low-income housing site to house its houseless residents.
“It's really important that we have (these sites),” Cohen said. “It's also important to show that we're all part of this together in all the districts in San José and so I'm really excited that we're moving forward.”
Shaunn Cartwright, a houselessness advocate and co-founder of the Unhoused Response Group, said the city also needs to increase its focus on developing permanent supportive housing.
The Unhoused Response Group is a group run entirely by volunteers that focuses on giving unhoused residents essential supplies, according to its Facebook page.
Cartwright said “tiny homes” or temporary supportive housing are a temporary measure.
“People need to be able to graduate ... from supportive housing,” Cartwright said.
Cartwright also said she hopes there is a shuttle to drive people in and out of the site.
She said some from the houseless community leave these types of housing programs because they have a difficulty with finding ways to transport themselves in and out of the property.
“We need that effort out there,” Cartwright said. “It has happened and people are leaving those kinds of homes because they don't have the ways to get anywhere particularly, people who are older and disabled.”
Otto Lee, Santa Clara County representative for District Three and vice president of the Board of Supervisors, said he wants to make sure the committees working on the proposal in the future will work on developing a shuttle service for residents living at Cerone Yard.
Lee said he wants the shuttle services to be located adjacent to the yard.
“That will be absolutely necessary for this to work,” Lee said.
He also said he would like to request the Safety Advisory Committee to review larger and successful supportive housing projects throughout the country.
Lee said he wants to ensure Cerone Yard is safe and successful.
“This is a game changer for providing them with a well run, managed program,” he said. “It would provide them [a] safe roof over their heads, three meals a day. In case management services [will] help these residents heal while waiting to transition.”
Tammy Dhanota, VTA chapter president and region one vice president for Service Employees International Union (SEIU) 521 Chapter, said she came to the last meeting on Sept. 7 to speak out about safety issues VTA workers felt were not addressed while developing the proposal.
Service Employees International Union is a union that represents 53,000 public, nonprofit and private-sector workers, in the Bay Area and the Central Valley.
Dhanota said despite the union workers’ past concerns with their personal safety, SEIU held a press conference hours before the meeting to show their support for the proposal.
“That means future residents, at least neighbors that are there today, and that means every single worker, so everyone's voice can be heard,” Dhanota said. “To make sure that it's safe to operate transit service, which is ultimately what we do ... So we need to not forget that we need to make sure that everybody stays safe.”
Chavez said she is sorry the VTA workers were villainized during the development of the project.
She said she wants the public to know how it is to have genuine policy disagreements about how to proceed when tackling different issues.
“I don't think there's anybody out here who isn't prioritizing houselessness and I can see that because often when we're having conflicts over how to do something,” Chavez said.
Rosemary Kamei, vice mayor of San José, said she is pleased that the county was able to come together to fully develop this project.
Kamei said the board needs to initiate the plan because the process to build the site is going to take time.
“You know these things don't happen by accident,” Kumei said. “I would encourage that whatever you can do now, don't wait.”
