SAN JOSE PLANS to decommission its only sanctioned tent homeless encampment months after it opened.
The Taylor Street Navigation Hub is scheduled to close by next January as San Jose grapples with its $50 million deficit. The move comes as a shock to homeless advocates, as San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan threw his weight behind the site, rallied to get community support and hosted meetings to assuage concerned neighbors. The safe sleeping site, which is managed by nonprofit HomeFirst, took four months to construct, $2.6 million to build and $2.4 million a year to operate.
“When we opened Taylor Street, we were resolving one of our largest encampments and needed a safe, managed place for people to quickly stabilize before transitioning to interim or permanent placements,” Mahan told San José Spotlight. “Safe sleeping is still a useful tool, but tough fiscal years require tradeoffs. That’s why this year we’re prioritizing the rest of our interim system and specifically bringing down cost by rebidding nonprofit contracts and leveraging county mental health services.”
Mahan said the city may reintroduce safe sleeping sites if future budgets have the funds.
An idea with challenges
Last September, San Jose transformed a vacant lot at 1157 E. Taylor St. into a safe sleeping site with 56 tents. Participants are given three daily meals and have access to showers, laundry facilities and case management. The city dubbed it a “navigation hub,” with the goal of moving people within 30 days to a tiny home site or motel converted to a shelter.
Mahan previously said he’d been inspired by San Diego’s sanctioned encampment when he visited two years ago. The Southern California city’s two safe sleeping sites could host up to 767 people, with tents provided by the city. Mahan returned to San Jose determined to replicate the program.
The navigation center came with challenges. Besides homeless people being reluctant to move from their existing encampments into another tent, the site was delayed by six months. Days after it welcomed its first residents, it had to temporarily close due to electrical issues stemming from a generator.
A homeless person who stayed at the site during the winter said her tent and others had mold due to rain seeping through. She asked to remain anonymous for privacy concerns. During the night, she said wind chill made it difficult to sleep despite staying in insulated ice fishing tents. During the daytime, her tent would become hot. They were provided fans and extra blankets, but not any heating devices, she said.
“We would hear people crying in the middle of the night because it was so cold,” she told San José Spotlight. “I was completely shocked at the fact that these people expected us to be in the freezing cold with no heating elements whatsoever.”
Neither Mahan’s office nor the San Jose Housing Department answered questions about what had been done to remedy the potential mold, or what would be provided to residents to stave off weather extremes.
Other residents were disheartened about the site shutting down. They said the food, sanitation and case management services were an improvement from before.
“It’s not perfect, but I feel much safer here as a woman,” resident Cat P. told San José Spotlight.
Not the right fit
It’s unclear how successful the city was in moving people from the safe sleeping site into housing. Housing Department spokesperson Sarah Fields said the site has so far served 247 people in the eight months it’s been open, and 202 have exited. She did not provide clarification if all those who exited transitioned into housing, were kicked out of the program or chose to leave. For those who did find housing, their average length of stay was 30 days, she said.
“The city will continue to use the resources available at this site through the end of the year, and the service provider will work with clients on their transition to other programs,” Fields told San José Spotlight.
Homeless advocate Gail Osmer said she’s disappointed in the closure, as it’s one less option for getting people off the streets.
“I don’t think 100% it was a failure,” Osmer told San José Spotlight. “People didn’t want to go there, but it was a step to go someplace else. It just wasn’t a good fit for people in San Jose.”
Since 2023, San Jose’s homeless population has increased by 237 people to more than 6,500, according to the latest homeless census conducted last year. The census, conducted before several new temporary housing sites came online, estimated about 60% of the city’s homeless people were unsheltered.
Mahan has made tackling unsheltered homelessness one of his top priorities, doubling the number of homeless shelters the city operates over the past year and a half. But the expansion has also come with a hefty price tag of more than $90 million a year to pay for maintenance and operating costs.
District 3 Councilmember Anthony Tordillos, whose district includes the safe sleeping site, said it was a temporary pilot program designed to move people out of large encampments like the ones at Columbus Park, which the city dismantled last year, and The Jungle, which is being cleared.
“Pilots like this site are an opportunity to learn what works, what doesn’t and improve moving forward,” Tordillos told San José Spotlight. “With more than 1,000 new shelter beds opened across the city in the past year, the decision was made to wind down this pilot. I remain committed to finding long-term solutions to our homelessness crisis.”
After six weeks at the safe sleeping site, the woman whose tent had mold transitioned into a converted motel.
“I am so grateful because everything that I actually was asking for, to be in a better place for my health and for me to be able to relax and be comfortable, I have here,” she said.
Contact Joyce Chu at joyce@sanjosespotlight.com or @joyce_speaks on X.
This story originally appeared in San José Spotlight.