Summary
San Jose will begin clearing a creek-side homeless camp known as “the Jungle” on April 15, city officials said, with outreach underway in the lead-up to the sweep. The camp is located around Story Road across from Happy Hollow Park & Zoo, where city officials said about 100 people have repopulated the area.
Mayor Matt Mahan’s office cited the city’s recent housing expansion and said the next step is aimed at connecting people to services and restoring public space for community use. In a statement, Mahan said in part that San Jose has expanded shelter and interim housing “faster than any other city on the West Coast,” and that the work has allowed the city to decommission its largest encampments so it can both restore public spaces and connect people to “return to self-sufficiency.”
City officials said people encamped at the Jungle will be prioritized for housing at the Cerone tiny home site in North San Jose, which opened in early February. A representative for Mahan’s office did not respond to a request for comment, according to the report distributed by The Associated Press.
The planned action follows earlier efforts that also included offers of housing. In 2014, the 68-acre camp along Coyote Creek was widely described as the nation’s largest homeless camp, with about 300 people living in tents and makeshift homes. When the city dismantled the encampment more than a decade ago, it set aside $4 million to move people into subsidized housing using vouchers.
Robert Aguirre, one person who received a housing voucher and remains housed, said he is grateful to no longer be sleeping by the creek but believes the city left some people behind when it moved people out the first time. Even with the area fenced off, Aguirre said he has seen people return to the Jungle and slip back into street living, and he told San José Spotlight that being passed up for housing reinforces a sense that people do not feel cared for. Aguirre also told the outlet that rebuilding trust with outreach workers is essential and that “when you lose that trust, it’s too difficult to get it back again,” as quoted in the report.
The reporting also included residents describing what they expect from the city’s outreach and sweep. One man living at the Jungle, who did not provide his name due to fears of immigration enforcement, said he fled Mexico after someone threatened his life and later ended up at the camp after being evicted when his cousin could no longer pay rent. He said an outreach worker from nonprofit People Assisting the Homeless (PATH) told him he will move to the Taylor Street safe sleeping site before being placed in temporary housing, and he said he feels “good about getting housing,” adding that he views it as an improvement because “Here you have nothing,” as he told San José Spotlight.
Jose Cuvias, 44, said he became homeless after losing a construction job seven years ago and said he has been waiting for housing. Frederico Gamez, 25, said he has been homeless for five years and built his makeshift shelter himself, and he told San José Spotlight through a translator that he wants to leave and has nowhere to go.
San Jose said its housing department has contracted with PATH to engage with residents living at the Jungle, and that bilingual outreach workers are being sent to the encampment. The city said its outreach team is also onsite collecting information to enter into the countywide software system that tracks homeless people, with outreach beginning Feb. 25.
As capacity allows, San Jose said it aims to emphasize making shelter and interim housing placements for individuals and families exiting encampments as part of its strategy to reduce unsheltered homelessness. The report also noted that last summer the city cleared its largest homeless encampment at Columbus Park, where about 370 people had congregated in RVs and tents, and that the city moved the majority of residents into five hotels it converted into temporary housing.
Homeless advocates and residents previously told San José Spotlight that the Columbus Park sweep and outreach were conducted in what they described as a haphazard and rushed manner, and that residents who moved into hotels said they felt “caged in” by rules they had to follow. After the Jungle sweep is completed, the report said the area will be declared a “no encampment zone,” with signs posted to deter people from re-encamping.
Silicon Valley’s largest city has 6,503 homeless residents, and a point-in-time count conducted last January found about 60% of that population—3,959 people—were unsheltered, while 2,544 were sheltered. Since that count, the city said it has added more than 1,000 beds across a dozen new or expanded temporary housing sites.