Santa Clara County Homelessness Digest

SAN JOSE HAS begun temporarily banning RVs in designated areas across the city this week. Under a $3.3 million pilot program, Oversized and Lived-In Vehicle Enforcement (OLIVE), the city has chosen 30 temporary tow-away zones to clear RVs for street sweeping and cleanup throughout this year.

Jennielynn Holmes stood in the middle of a make-shift evacuation center when the scope of the crisis hit her.

Learn about the 30 locations in San Jose under consideration for towaway zones in an effort to address RV encampments in the city.

EYES WELLED WITH tears as people lit candles and spoke the names of Santa Clara County homeless residents who died this year at a memorial this past Friday — a reminder of the harsh reality of living on the streets and the urgency to get more people housed.

Homeless San Jose State University students are struggling to find housing — and worry where they’re going to sleep at night as they stress over school work and passing grades.The Student Homeless Alliance, which advocates for unhoused SJSU students, is pushing to expand the number of emergency beds available and for seven safe parking spaces in garages for those living in their vehicles.

San Jose officials are sharing more details about the city’s first safe sleeping site for homeless residents as the March opening draws near.

Read on to learn how San Jose officials are demanding better reporting and tracking of effectiveness of millions of dollars spent through nonprofit partners on homeless services.

Get the details behind why San Jose and non profit partners have initiated a count of homeless encampments along area creeks and streams.

Gov. Newsom launched an ambitious program that uses Medi-Cal to help Californians access housing, healthy food and more. Now, its fate is in the hands of President-Elect Trump.

Many California cities offer their homeless residents one-way bus tickets to other places.

The City of Milpitas has allocated $700,000 for rental assistance to support low-income and homeless residents in finding housing. Read on to learn more.

Learn about efforts by the City of Milpitas to provide essential services to local homeless and at-risk individuals.

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.