People living in one of Silicon Valley's largest homeless settlements got cleared out Monday morning by Caltrans—the latest in a slew of sweeps that collectively displace hundreds of residents and cost the region millions of dollars each year.
Upward of 100 people were living at the encampment at I-280 and I-101 in East San Jose before state officials gave them notice to move. Activists who got wind of the eviction staged a protest early Monday morning to call attention to what they call inhumane displacement tactics.
Below are some images from the protest and sweep. All photos by Samantha Lopez.
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- Pastor Scott Wagers of CHAM Deliverance Ministry, speaks to protesters at 7:30 Monday morning.
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- Caltrans crews stood around for some time before commencing with the sweep.
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- A homeless woman pauses to comfort her dog before packing up her things to leave.
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- ‘Googleville’ was called the biggest encampment since The Jungle, which San Jose dismantled in 2014 in the dead of winter.
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- Upward of 100 people lived at the camp.
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- Residents of the camp were given a few days’ notice to leave.
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- Protesters decried the sweep as inhumane.
Life on the streets isn’t safe or sanitary. People in need should access the 100 programs helping the homeless throughout the city of San Jose. The city of San Jose funds programs that provide food, clothes, laundry service, shelter, and housing assistance is available.
We can help the homeless by making outreach programs aware of the homeless camps so that people can get off the streets and into a support program.
The homeless and people concerned about the homeless can contact various local outreach programs assisting the homeless:
ho**************@sa*******.gov
in**@ho**********.org
pa**@ep***.org
> The city of San Jose funds programs that provide food, clothes, laundry service, shelter, and housing assistance is available.
Successful behavior is repeated.
It San Jose’s “outreach programs” make the homeless lifestyle comfortable and “successful”, the number of homeless will skyrocket and the “outreach programs” will be overwhelmed.
I realise that you think you have a really big heart, but fostering and supporting a homeless population IS NOT SUSTAINABLE — no matter how big your g*ddamn heart is.
Don’t feed the pigeons.
Outreach programs can visit people in need, but only if you let them know about the encampments. Outreach services can connect people in need with about 100 support programs in San Jose for the homeless.
You can contact various local outreach programs assist the homeless and coordinate cleanup:
ho**************@sa*******.gov
in**@ho**********.org
cu*************@sa*******.gov
pa**@ep***.org
The city of San Jose funds many programs that can get people off the street and supplied with food, hot showers, clean laundry and housing assistance.
> Outreach services can connect people in need with about 100 support programs in San Jose for the homeless.
“Outreach” is a liberal touchy-feely word that refers to “finding clients”.
In other words, it’s “marketing”.
Liberals don’t like the word “marketing” because it is linked to the icky idea of finding customers “for profit”.
Liberals like to imagine that when they find customers, it’s not icky, because they’re not doing it for “profit”, only to feel good about themselves.
Agree with the above two comments. Living in these encampments is bad for everyone. The cheapest and modt humane thing to do is house them in real apartments, SJ has a 5% vacancy rate and there are 300,000 vacant units in CA.
SJ KULAK,
Where did you pull that ‘San Jose has a 5% vacancy rate’ number from? Last I heard it was well under 3%, and still trending down. And housing costs as a fraction of income have changed over the past decade, from about 19% to about 23% (as of 2015, the latest available figures). That doesn’t seem like a crisis, no matter how many crocodile tears are being shed by self-appointed ‘homeless advocates’.
Yes, there’s a housing shortage. It is 100.0% the fault of local government, which refuses to allow high rise zoning and other zoning changes necessary to alleviate it. There are always people in the private sector ready, willing, and able to build more housing. Right now they’re chomping at the bit. But as usual, “NO!” is the city’s default response to anyone wanting to build more housing… been there, done that.
A question: since there’s a low vacancy rate in this area, and there are “homeless” who presumably want a free place to live, are you suggesting that individuals who own housing should let the “homeless” move in? If so, show us how that works by moving a few “homeless” into your own abode.
Or, are you suggesting that the gov’t (ie: the hard-bitten taxpayers) should open taxpayers’ wallets even wider, to allow in the groping fingers of local do-gooders who refuse to pony up their own money or extra bedrooms to help alleviate the situation?
It’s always easy-peasy to step aside and demand that “the city” should become a Landlord. But if you need a life lesson on why that preposterous idea will never work, just look at the VTA fiasco: appointed, overpaid bureaucrats—who never managed a bus line before—took over local public transportation, and now taxpayers are forced to subsidize public transportation at triple the former cost.
Finally, please just answer one more question: If taxpayers are expected to be their ‘brother’s keeper’, when does that obligation end? Where do we draw the line? Post a dollar number, please. But no matter what $ number you come up with, we’ve passed it long ago.
Get back to us when the pot holes have all been filled in, ‘K? Because for the forseeable future, the taxpayers who would be expected to pay for those wonderful new ‘help the homeless’ ideas are all tapped out…
And what have we got to show for it?
http://www.sanjoseca.gov/DocumentCenter/View/62580
page 5 – been oscillating around 5% for a while. There are vacancies in SJ and CA, just the government makes it easier to keep them vacant through rent control and other counterproductive regulations. BTW – 1 in 7 homes in the US are vacant, 1 in 402 Americans are homeless. There are a lot of already built vacant units.
In terms of the city becoming landlords, no, this would be a disaster. We rent to homeless vets though the VASH program and there are a number of private and public programs that help homeless get into homes. It is far cheaper, cleaner, easier to offer rent subsidies to homeless than building new units or wooden boxes in dirt lots. Many homeless don’t need 100% subsidy, some just need a few hundred dollars a month.
I wish everyone had the ability to live wherever they wanted on their own nickel, but they can’t. A little give both ways, flexibility on where you live for those that can not and a bit of generosity for those that can.
If only the tech elite would do more micro-dosing and have more orgy think tank sessions, they could muse a result-based solution.
Homeless is a dirty way of life. So much is wrong in this state $15 and hour is not good. California is government is a joke .The jungle near Kelly park was closed do to the Marriot hotel company it is going to build a nice hotel there when bart comes to San Jose how could we get someone like Sam
If you want to kill ambition, rob folks of their need to find a way to live from their own hard work. Some people need the help we can offer, but most are paralyzed by the intoxicating lure of a ‘free’ tent. Most are not mental health concerns. Good libs prefer to virtue flag and keep people like pets rather than admit they should be free beings…free to find a way to live without trespassing.
From My new home out of state, I am handing out cards to homeless bums and drifters and instructions on “Do You Know The Way to San Jose” and all the benefits, Free food a tent and all the pot they can smoke!
They’re trespassing on state property. Most of their belongings are stolen. Their camps are unsanitary to the point of being an extreme health hazard. Drug and alcohol use is rampant. Need I go on
My girlfreind left me a week ago, walked out into the streets with nothing. Her mom says she turned up i a homeless camp. I don’t even know where to begin looking. Anyone have thoughts?