Families who have been parking overnight outside Seven Trees Community Center will soon be moving onto a different kind of shelter: a motel room.

The San Jose City Council on Tuesday voted unanimously to end the family safe parking program at Seven Trees amid low participation and concerns about safety from neighbors. City officials will begin the search for a new site that will potentially be for adults only and return to council in two to three months.

The program, which gave families living in their cars a more secure place to rest their heads at night, launched as an experimental pilot last November. The nonprofit LifeMoves has been running the day-to-day operation since then, providing services such as case management, security and access to showers.

But while the lot’s capacity can hold up to 17 vehicles, housing officials say that there have been about four to seven families on average each night. That’s a stark difference from San Jose’s adult safe parking sites at Roosevelt and Southside community centers, which on average turn out about eight to 10 and 10 to 12 vehicles a night, respectively.

No access to laundry, no cooking facilities and the fact that families were required to move during the days were some of the problems expressed by program participants.

— Grace Hase (@grace_hase) September 11, 2019

San Jose Deputy Housing Director Ragan Henninger said that during a review of the program city officials spoke with a number of families that declined to participate. Some 303 families—out of the 689 contacted overall—said they weren’t interested in the program. Many of them were reportedly on wait lists for shelters.

“Some of the most common reasons are families with young children prefer to stay with family or friends or they prefer to stay in motels or hotels if they have that option,” Henninger told San Jose Inside. “We have the opportunity with the motel voucher program and it’s really a better opportunity to move families inside.”

The motel voucher program, which was also approved by the council on Tuesday, would focus on transitioning families at the Seven Trees lot into motels. City officials envision that it would add capacity to already overloaded emergency shelters.

Meanwhile, the city will start searching for an alternative safe parking site.  

Neighbors of the Seven Trees Community Center have voiced concerns about illicit activity, illegal dumping and a spike in the number of RVs parked along nearby roads. City officials suspect that the complaints are misdirected, and that they actually involve people who are not enrolled in the safe parking program.

“There’s been a poor implementation of this program,” said Jonathan Velazquez, the president of the Seven Trees Neighborhood Association. “At this point it’s not so much that the safe parking program is the real issue, it’s what’s going on on the street. The community sometimes has a hard time differentiating.”

Morales-Ferrand responding to public comment: "We have heard some concerns but when I hear people talk about it the over arching concerns have not been about the families themselves."

— Grace Hase (@grace_hase) September 11, 2019

Mayor Sam Liccardo said he believes the city “dropped the ball” when it came to providing the community with support services.

“We need to be more focused and committed where we are making facilities available for formerly homeless individuals to ensure the surrounding community gets all the attention they deserve and need from the city,” Liccardo told San Jose Inside.

Councilwoman Maya Esparza, who represents the Seven Trees neighborhood in District 7, said that the location was a “poor choice”—especially since it's next to two schools. It also has multiple entrances and exits, which is something she says private providers would typically try to avoid.

Esparza, who said she doesn't want her position to be “mischaracterized” for a lack of support, is offering other sites in her district like the Leininger Center. The council also approved one of her recommendations to explore ways to support private and nonprofit safe parking programs. “Private operators know what they're doing,” Esparza said. “I’m not sure this is something that the city should be in the business of doing.”

Next time the city hopes to take a more “coordinated” response and include the police department, code enforcement, public works and parks, recreation and neighborhood services, among other department's, in the conversation.

Peralez also wanted the city to explore a potential daytime safe parking program. A site won't be immediately brought back to council, but Peralez hopes that city officials think more about where people in their cars go in the mornings. Most safe parking programs kick participants out when the sun comes, leaving some people living in their car with no place for their vehicle during the day.

Peralez asking Esparza to incorporate a daytime safe parking program in the recommendation.
"What I’m suggesting is that if you are homeless & living in your car you don’t only have a problem parking overnight." He adds that in the a.m. safe parking programs ask people to leave.

— Grace Hase (@grace_hase) September 11, 2019

But while family safe parking will come to a close at Seven Trees, the city will consider it as a strategy to address homelessness and housing insecurity for families with children.

“I totally agree this was not the right location. It was our first attempt to serve families,” said Sylvia Arenas, the councilwoman who proposed the initiative. “We have to sometimes be bold and then we learn lessons through that boldness. One of the lessons is we need to learn a little bit more about what these families are going through.”