Santa Clara County Homelessness Digest

Homeless Californians face many barriers to casting a ballot, even in elections that affect their lives. Some counties and nonprofits are trying to boost turnout.

Multiple state agencies spent nearly $24 billion on housing and homeless programs in the first five years of Gavin Newsom’s governorship, but the number of people without homes continued to grow, rising by 20% to more than 180,000 in the most recent federal count in 2023.

A Mercury News map showing the location of the sites where San Jose plans to build over 700 tiny homes for transitional housing for local homeless.

Homeless service providers are scaling back and taking out loans as they wait for late payments from the government.

Over the last five years, the state government has spent some $24 billion to ameliorate homelessness, which, according to polls, is California’s most troublesome issue.

Failed legislative bills have attempted to create safe parking programs for students to sleep in their cars on California campuses while awaiting housing. Meanwhile, Long Beach City College allows homeless students to park overnight.

For five years, California officials responding to the homelessness crisis had to work around one big restriction imposed by the federal courts: Because they didn’t have enough shelter beds, cities generally couldn’t make homeless camps illegal.

More than two-dozen California cities passed, strengthened or are considering ordinances that penalize people for sleeping outside, after the U.S. Supreme Court allowed cities to crack down.

An exclusive CalMatters analysis of the latest California homeless count reveals some good news and bad news: Though the growth rate of homelessness appears to be slowing, the overall number of unhoused Californians increased from two years ago.

The nonprofit Community Services Agency has been preparing to provide more services for homeless residents of Mountain View, Los Alto and Los Altos Hills following Governor Newsom's order to agencies to clear camps from state property.

The mayors of Palo Alto, East Palo Alto, Foster City and Half Moon Bay have all voiced support for pursuing a regional plan to address local homelessness.

California has allocated more than $20 billion to alleviate the state’s homelessness crisis since Gavin Newsom became governor in 2019, but there’s precious little data on how the money was spent and what effect it’s had, other than the number of unhoused people has continued to climb.

Following the direction of the Federal Aviation Commission, the City of San Jose began clearing a homeless encampment from under a flight path serving San Jose Mineta International Airport.

A look at some of the over 1,000 homeless students are enrolled in Santa Clara County public schools.

San Jose City Councilmember Arjun Batra joined in opposition of a planned Santa Clara County purchase of the South San Jose interim housing sites for use in a jail diversion program.

A look at the life of a 7-year-old member of a family living in a homeless encampment in San Jose.

A plan by Santa Clara County to acquire a City of San Jose-owned homeless tiny house site to be used for a jail diversion plan was put on hold following strong opposition from nearby residents.

As work approaches to repave El Camino Real, officials in Palo Alto are working to expand safe parking space for the dozens of RVs which will need to be moved.

A critical new federal audit calls out California for doing too little to prevent fraudulent spending of homelessness funds. Nearly $320 million was at risk.

The Willow Glen Neighborhood Association is open to a sanctioned homeless encampment at the Valley Transportation Authority’s Lelong Street property, but with a list of conditions.

In a July 25 ceremony, Sunnyvale and county officials gathered across from the Lawrence Caltrain Station to celebrate the start of construction of 176 affordable apartments.

The 102-unit Sango Court affordable housing complex in Milpitas offers 102 apartments for people transitioning out of homelessness.

San Jose announced a $6.7 million state grant will be used to finance a 100-unit tiny house site on Cherry Avenue.

In 2021, responding to reports that the state’s homeless shelters were dirty and dangerous, the state Legislature crafted a plan: It would require local governments to inspect their shelters after complaints and file annual reports on shelter conditions.

The Supreme Court’s decision on homelessness will test a shelter system that’s full of problems – and lacking accountability.

Taking advantage of new state funds, some California healthcare providers are starting to offer what their homeless patients really need: housing.

There’s a lot of misinformation floating around out there about homelessness in California. We use data to dispel several common myths.

The ruling by the conservative court majority means cities no longer are prohibited from punishing homeless people for camping if they have nowhere else to go.

The Supreme Court 6-3 ruling in the City of Grants Pass v. Johnson case found that the fining and arresting of homeless people does not violate Eighth Amendment rights.

A panel at the CalMatters Ideas Festival debates how to reduce homelessness without punishing poverty. There’s worry about a potential $1 billion cut in state funding.

It’s the billion-dollar question. That’s how much cities and other local governments have been receiving from the state each year to deal with California's ever-increasing population of homeless people.

In his June 1 State of the City speech, San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan asserted a need to find clean and safe places to move over 1,000 homeless from unsafe conditions on the streets and along waterways in the coming 12 months.