San Jose — When Apple wanted to wipe out a large homeless camp last year, the tech giant not only wiped everyone out of the site, but to dozens of people for nine months. Find a home that has spent millions of dollars offering a motel stay and helping them.
Currently, the nine-month motel’s grace period expired on Monday, and the efforts of wealthy tech companies have permanently accommodated eight people, more than three times waiting for placement a few days before the deadline. Was there.
Uncertain about where to go when the clock goes out, this situation highlights how difficult it is to pull people away from the Bay Area homeless, even one of the world’s most valuable companies.
The Apple-sponsored program faced a series of hurdles that were reflected throughout the region. Finding affordable housing, gaining the trust of those who have lived outside for years, overcoming arrests, addictions and other obstacles, medical, mental health and other complex needs.
This experience sheds light on why. Despite voters consistently ranking the homeless as the Bay Area’s biggest problem, Governor Gavin Newsom has made it a top priority to wipe out California’s homeless camps, and the COVID outbreak Spurred floods in new federal and state states. Funding — Encampments line our city. According to data released this month, more than 6,700 people live without homes in San Jose alone. It has increased by 11% since 2019. The counties of Santa Clara, Alameda, San Mateo and Contra Costa are all growing homeless.
“We know that (the motel) works very efficiently for some program participants and needs more time for others,” Apple funded. Lori Smith, Chief Marketing and Communications Officer at HomeFirst, a non-profit program that runs the program, said in an email. “Each person travels to the homeless and each paves the way. It rarely looks the same.”
Apple declined to comment specifically on the program, but said it “has worked with partners throughout the state to support risky communities and provide new, affordable units.”
What started out as some RVs parked next to a vacant lot owned by Apple in San Jose’s component drive was a large scale of dozens of people, vehicles, temporary structures, and garbage during the COVID outbreak. I grew up in a nice camp.
Promising $ 2.5 billion to help fight the Bay Area’s affordable housing shortage and homeless crisis in 2019, the company has a logistical and ethical challenge to how to handle this issue in its backyard. I was holding. Apple cleared the camp in September and paid to place 56 residents at a motel in San Jose. The company also paid for a year’s worth of case management services to connect residents to long-term housing, mental health care, addiction services, and more. Neither Apple nor HomeFirst said last year’s nonprofits were “millions,” but they didn’t say how much tech companies spent.
Residents of the RV who declined the motel room were placed in a safe parking lot in North San Jose, but the location was closed less than three months after a fierce backlash from neighbors. rice field.
As the deadline approached last Monday, 25 people were still living at the Casa Linda Motel on Monterey Road, waiting for their homes. According to Smith, HomeFirst wanted everyone to be in place by the end of the motel’s program. If that didn’t happen, the residents would be provided with a bed in an emergency shelter, she said.
According to Smith, half of those who have already left the motel have moved to permanent or temporary housing: apartments, temporary small homes, or family homes. She was hoping for her first child when she left the camp and touted several success stories, including a mother and father who now live in an apartment with a healthy boy. More than a quarter of the participants were involved in health care, social security, and other benefits, and almost everyone was on the waiting list for housing, Smith said.
After being arrested or violating the rules, 10 people were forced to leave the program early.
HomeFirst CEO Andrea Urton said Apple played an important role in accommodating motel residents or on the road to housing. But activist Sean Cartwright blamed the tech company for providing people with the stability of the motel’s room and robbing it. She said her stay at the motel was astounding for the physical and mental health of the inhabitants and the program needed to be extended.
“If they get out on the street, it’s entirely Apple’s fault,” she said. “That’s Apple’s shame.”
HomeFirst is working to bring some residents into one of San Jose’s five smaller housing communities until a long-term home is found. However, some motel residents do not trust the small homes, worried that the rules may be too strict and the accommodation may not meet their needs. Because the bathroom is shared between the two sites The motel residents are uncomfortable. A woman with two dogs was worried that she might have to give up one to accommodate the policy of one pet.
Others like 65-year-old Bertha Iglesias, who make intricate paper flowers in the motel room, said last week that they weren’t offered any placement. Coming Monday, she will return to the trailer and park in the street near her mother’s house.
Richard Bebee, 50, has lived on the Component Drive site for years. When it was cleared, he said he was told he could enter a permanent home if he entered the motel program. So he sold his truck and moved to a motel, hoping to get a commercial driver’s license and become a truck driver.
“I was very excited,” he said. Nine months later, he has not yet been trained in truck driving and raised the necessary funds to take a driving test. BB said he was offered a place for a small house, but he didn’t want it. “Now, on the 23rd, I’m back here,” he gestured to the car.
Home First can do just that to help people, Arton said.
“If there is a lack of permanent housing options, or if people do not meet the criteria for immediate placement, that is all we can do,” she said in a message. .. “
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