Santa Clara County Local News: Homelessness

San Jose officials have a daunting task of balancing the budget as they attempt to preserve city services with a $52.1 million shortfall.

Los Gatos Council last night approved $60,000 for homeless services next year—$10,000 more than staff had requested—citing the effectiveness of the pilot year’s efforts.

Santa Clara County officials may help finance San Jose’s multimillion-dollar safe parking efforts and set up more sites on unused public property for the region's homeless residents.

After San José Spotlight broke the story on Sunday about pre-built homes arriving unfinished and in poor condition, the site is peppered in mold remediation signs over tarped buildings and employees working in white jumpsuits. City officials said the mold problem is being addressed, and that the opening of the site is still months away.

A multimillion-dollar project to put homeless people in pre-built housing — that San Jose officials championed as cheap and revolutionary — is delayed due to homes arriving unfinished.

About 40 homeless people are tucked away on a small parcel of land adjacent to busy Highway 237.
The encampment sits on the same location where Microsoft plans to construct two data centers in San Jose near the Milpitas border. The unhoused residents said a Caltrans worker tipped them off to a looming sweep. Officials from Caltrans, Santa Clara County and San Jose deny any such plan. Yet someone has put the encampment on notice, and its residents are on edge.
“If we have to move in 60 days, 90 days — fine, that’s what we’ll work from. But we want to be prepared,” Ricky Robles, a 60-year-old unhoused resident who has lived at the encampment for two years, told San José Spotlight. “We have vehicles and would need to get our cars out of here. We’ll have to get our cars towed if they don’t start. Or we risk getting ticketed or getting our stuff taken away. And then, we need to figure out where to go.”
Microsoft bought the 65-acre site in 2017 for $73 million to construct the data centers. San Jose officials have yet to issue permits for the project, which is still under review by the San Jose planning division and other departments.
Microsoft declined to comment on the encampment.
Advocates and local officials differ on when the encampment appeared, but pin its origin sometime between 2021 and 2022. They agree the camp ballooned after Milpitas city officials, in a high profile anti-homeless campaign, pushed unhoused residents out of town toward Highway 237.
Roughly 40 people are living out of their cars in an encampment by Highway 237. Microsoft plans to build two data centers on this location. Photo by Brandon Pho.
“It got worse when Milpitas cracked down,” Councilmember David Cohen, whose District 4 encompasses the Highway 237 camp, told San José Spotlight. “We can’t control what other cities do within their borders, but I hope we will all work together to be thoughtful and solve the problem rather than take quick action that makes it harder on neighbors.”
Robles said he’s lived at the encampment for two years, due to legal battles with his brother. He tried living in various motels and county shelter programs, but he had bad experiences.

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