When it comes to popular support for housing the homeless, there are two types of people: those who want it, and those who want someone else to want it more than they do. Nowhere was that made more apparent than at the community meeting I attended last Monday night at Trinity Cathedral, regarding plans for a new permanent supportive housing project to be built on 2nd Street and Julian Avenue in Downtown San Jose.
“I just wonder if you had considered Hedding street, between Spring and Coleman,” one woman suggested as an alternate location for the project. “Sure, it's near the airport landing area, but...I'm sure it's cheap. It would give room for your excellent program, make even larger than it is.”
“The housing was demolished in that area because of the landing path,” Councilman Raul Peralez, who governs downtown and is a firm supporter of the project, responded. “That site wasn't looked at because you can't put housing there.”
The woman didn't seem convinced. “Has there been any instance of changing the FAA rules?” Peralez shook his head. “No,” he replied.
“Why not?”she asked.
The councilman couldn't help a bewildered chuckle. “I couldn't give you that answer,” he said. “I don't work with them.”
Others were more blunt in their criticisms. “I think you're not really helping them, not really instilling any pride, because there's nothing for them to do,” an older gentleman complained. “You say you don't want to encourage people to hang out in the park so they can get this good free housing, but...doesn't that give them an incentive to, y'know, just be there?”
“There is no 'free' housing,” Megan Colvard, director of People Assisting The Homeless (PATH), the nonprofit group managing the project, replied. “PATH teams are in the park five days a week addressing homelessness. The individuals that we have been able to link to county housing subsidies come from interactions and engagements in Saint James Park.”
“If other people see what you're doing, they'll say well, I'll just hang out at the park too, so I can get this free housing,” the man continued.
“This project is geographically targeted to help us identify individuals early enough to begin working on housing them,” Colvard responded, her exasperation more felt than heard. “We're aware of every individual that's in that park, and we're working with them, I can assure you of that.”
Not everyone was resistant to the idea, however. “I'd just like to say that I think it's a wonderful plan,” an older woman chimed in at one point. “Much better than all the halfway houses...where they get their drugs and turn around and sell them on the street.”
“History is prologue,” one man stated. “I used to help [homeless] people for thirty years. For a long time, we've tried to solve the problem of homelessness in Saint James Park. The project [PATH] built in San Diego reduced the number of homeless in the park significantly, and that's why they built it close to the park. They have an incentive, and it's much more effective.”
PATH has a storied history of building housing units like this one. As their first entry into the San Francisco Bay Area, hopes for the project are high, but so are expectations. Colvard is aware of the gravity of the situation. “We're prioritizing those with highest acuity, that have been on the streets for many, many years,” Colvard said. “They're the individuals that we see and interact with probably every day. PATH is an agency that, in the last three years, has housed 6000 people this way.”
“We're working on ending homelessness,” she said. “Not just managing it.”
PATH has been operating in the park since October 2015, doing an incredible amount of reconnaissance to determine the precise extent to which permanent supportive housing can be achieved there, while helping literally hundreds of needy people along the way.
In addition to containing 78 units of permanent and interim supportive housing, the complex will provide spaces for a variety of outreach services for residents, including counseling and job training, as well as public spaces for residents to hold events. There are even plans for a rooftop vegetable garden.
Many in the crowd approved of the supportive services integration, as well as the emphasis on communal living. “I can't imagine anything better than going there and maybe volunteering and getting connected,” another woman in the crowd stated. “That's how we understand people who are in different situations.”
PATH aims to have the complex completed by Spring 2018. Councilman Peralez is optimistic that everyone will get on board as time goes on. “Certainly, it is a polarizing issue,” he said after the meeting. “[But] it hasn't been, 'I just don't want it.' The consensus has been more on location rather than anything else.”
“I like the location it's at, and I'm going to support and champion it,” he continued. “Everyone here that is living in downtown, whether you're living in a house or you're living on the street, you're part of the community.”
Peralez has been working closely with PATH since they first arrived in San Jose, and is confident in their ability to reduce homelessness in the downtown core. “I'm not coming in blindly and saying hey, let's just pick any old group,” he said. “We're picking a group that has done this before. [PATH] has already had tremendous success in our downtown, so they've proven themselves before the project is even built.”
Despite his optimism, Peralez knows bringing this project to fruition will prove difficult. But he and PATH are prepared to see this thing out to the bitter end. “The wise path to take is to expect all opposition,” he said. “We're willing to have those battles should somebody want to speak out against it.”
“I've made my position very clear,” he went on. “Everybody has the ability to go out and organize to oppose the project. I think that's also a long shot, considering the direction that we know our city needs to go.”
He smiled. “I don't take the opposition as a threat. We're never going to please everybody. But there's a lot of support there, and I'm confident that the individuals that have been opposed to it, we can get them to come around.”