The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced on Monday that a $11,109,104 grant will be awarded to the Santa Clara County Continuum of Care coalition.
The Continuum of Care coalition is a broad group of shareholders that include local government boards along with private shareholders tasked to tackle the issue of houselessness in Santa Clara County.
During an official announcement at the County of Santa Clara Department of Planning and Development building, HUD regional administrator Jason Pu said the grant will help combating houselessness in Santa Clara County.
“This funding initiative is a first of its kind package of resources that includes both grants and special housing vouchers to help communities provide both housing and supportive services to people experiencing homelessness in unsheltered and rural settings,” Pu said.
Santa Clara County is one of 75 communities in the U.S. receiving a federal grant since the launch of the program in February.
The number of houseless individuals in the county was 10,028, and 6,739 of those individuals claimed San Jose as their residing city, according to a report from Santa Clara County,
Pu said over $5.4 million of the grant will be used to combat houselessness in San Jose over the next three years.
Among the speakers in attendance was San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan.
Mahan said housing the unhoused is bigger than providing affordable housing.
“We know that the longer that we allow people to languish in homelessness, the worse their outcomes are, and the harder it is to get treatment,” he said. “For chronic illness, to get job training to hold down a job, It's nearly impossible to do any of the things that most of us take for granted.”
Pu said the grant is a big part of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris’s initiative to decrease houselessness by 25% by 2025.
Susan Ellenberg, Santa Clara County board president, said $3.1 million of the grant will go to the Rapid Rehousing program.
Rapid Rehousing is a program for individuals looking for housing who recently became houseless because of unfavorable circumstances.
“Through an innovative partnership between the office of supportive housing and affordable housing developers, the project has access to a pipeline of rapid rehousing units at newly constructed affordable housing developments,” Ellenberg said. “Participants who choose to live in one of these newly developed sites will have the ability to transition in place and retain their housing once the project assistance ends.”
One of the biggest supporters of the grant is Preston Prince, the executive director of the Santa Clara County Housing Authority.
Prince said one of the backbones that have been key in solving the houselessness crisis has been having people with lived experiences come back to work in programs focused on addressing the issue.
“Our communities have been really strong leading with lived experience,” Prince said. “There are groups of people who are formally and currently homeless who are out in the encampments every single week, engaging in alongside more traditional outreach teams and helping people to get off the streets to have the basic essentials that they need to survive while they're outdoors.”
Pu said these resources will ultimately help the county address houselessness, while also giving the unhoused the resources they need to get back on their feet.
“These funds will enable San Jose and Santa Clara County to advance the goals of the community’s plan to end homelessness,” Pu said. “It will help to expand the supportive housing system to provide more housing resources to have shelter tools and to reduce the length of time needed to resolve their homelessness. This award will therefore complement and enhance the city and counties existing and ongoing efforts to address and solve homelessness throughout the community.”
