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The years-long search for a place to put a homeless shelter in the northern end of Santa Clara County just got a little bit harder, after the Sunnyvale City Council last month doused plans to put temporary shelter on any part of Moffett Field next winter.
Last year, Sunnyvale agreed to have Santa Clara County place a temporary homeless shelter on the northern end of the former Onizuka Air Force Station, which is on the Sunnyvale side of Moffett Field. The 100-bed facility, which opened up in December, has been packed each night. The modular building at the site was an emergency measure to shelter homeless people during a potentially nasty El Nino-fueled rainy season.
But the agreement only lasts through March, and county officials were hoping Sunnyvale’s city council would be open to the idea of using Moffett Field next winter as well. Bob Dolci, the housing and homeless concerns coordinator for the county, said at the Feb. 23 Sunnyvale council meeting that county officials were interested in working with the private developer, Jay Paul, on a deal to keep the shelter at the same site next year. Alternatively, Dolci said, the city could work with the county to relocate the facility to the southern end of the former air force base, on city-owned land.
Sunnyvale city council members balked at the idea, and agreed to send a formal letter to Ky Le, director of the county’s Office of Supportive Housing, stating that they had no interest in housing a temporary shelter on Moffett Field. City council member Jim Griffith said he didn’t want the shelter on city-owned land because of the possibility that temporary use of the “extremely valuable” land could easily become permanent.
He also said it makes the city look bad.
“Agreeing to a temporary decision like this, even if everybody agrees, ‘Okay, one year and then you’re out,’ still puts the city as the bad guy at the end for simply enforcing what everybody agreed to in the first place,” Griffith said.
Other Sunnyvale council members quibbled over the timing of an environmental review for a homeless shelter on Moffett Field, claiming that the county should have pursued a California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) study late last year if there was interest in using the area again.
The idea seemed absurd to council member David Whittum, who said the city of Sunnyvale needs to cooperate with the county to find a place to shelter homeless residents in Santa Clara County, and argued that the CEQA analysis probably won’t reveal anything astounding to city officials.
“If somebody thinks that having a homeless shelter is going to generate too many vehicles miles traveled, I’d love to hear them articulate that,” Whittum said. “That would be hilarious.”
Of the roughly 6,500 homeless people in Santa Clara County, about 71 percent of them are considered “unsheltered,” meaning they are living in cars, along creeks and on the street. That ratio is higher than that of almost every other county in the country, including San Francisco and Los Angeles, and the ratio is even worse in the North County. Of the 276 homeless people in Mountain View, for example, 271 are unsheltered.
The problem stems in part from the closure of the Sunnyvale Armory in 2014, a key cold weather shelter for the North County area. County staff considered using county-owned land off of California and Fair Oaks Avenue, near a residential area in Sunnyvale, but the idea was shot down after a firestorm of opposition by nearby residents.
The plan, following the Sunnyvale meeting, is to set aside $1.25 million to break down and store the modular building on recently-acquired county land at 999 Hamlin Court in Sunnyvale, not too far from Moffett Field, as the county searches for a new site. At this point, no location at Moffett Field is still on the table.
“It is unlikely the city would allow any parcels on the former Onizuka Air Force Station for use as a temporary winter shelter,” according to a staff letter to the county Board of Supervisors.
The county is looking at using the Hamlin location not only for storage, but also for running the shelter for the next winter season, according to Santa Clara County Supervisor Joe Simitian. The county still has to do CEQA work and community outreach for the site, he said, and the search continues for one or more locations the county can use to house homeless people in the North County.
“We’re going to continue to look for other available sites and see if there’s any other locations that may be suitable for a homeless shelter,” Simitian said.
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The fish taco at La Viga in downtown Redwood City features red snapper, cabbage and chipotle cream sauce. Photo by Veronica Weber. -
A selection of La Viga’s tacos, from left: carne asada with nopales salsa and red sauce; pollo with tomatillo sauce and guacamole; and cochinita with pickled onion, habañero sauce and orange slices. Photo by Veronica Weber.
Hey Jim Griffith: Is your “valuable land” more valuable than human lives? What harm is it to build a permanent shelter on Moffett Field land, especially since this was government land in the first place? Why not build a community of “tiny homes” that are popping up in cities like Portland and Seattle? Check out one of these news articles and be so moved: http://www.fastcoexist.com/3055771/change-generation/this-village-of-tiny-houses-is-giving-seattles-homeless-a-place-to-live
Resident of Sunnyvale. Sunnyvale Council is corrupt!
+1 Bodhi’s idea.
A homeless shelter doesn’t make “the city look bad”. Not housing human beings who have no other options makes us all look bad. With our region’s tremendous economic success comes consequences that our ingenuity, wealth, and compassion should allow us to handle in a humane way.
“…City council member Jim Griffith said he didn’t want the shelter on city-owned land because of the possibility that temporary use of the “extremely valuable” land could easily become permanent…”
Shame on Jim Griffith and the Sunnyvale council! Of this huge expanse of empty land at Moffett Field, they can’t agree to share a tiny bit for the less fortunate who have to sleep in their cars or worse? How do these people sleep at night, knowing that several hundred people in our area can’t afford this ridiculously overpriced housing? They might try sleeping in their car. Just one job loss or catastrophic illness, etc and they could find themselves in the same predicament.
Shame on them.
Nothing short of a combination of arrogance and ignorance.
Sunnyvale never hesitates to raises fees for residents (see water, trash and sewage rates) and reduce services. Cut the staff who generate useless reports. Put the money toward alleviate suffering. It is a bloated city government without a heart.
Sunnyvale should follow the example of all the neighboring cities on how those cities handle the county’s homeless situation. They should examine what Mountain View, Los Altos, Cupertino, Santa Clara and Palo Alto offer?
As volunteers for the homeless at the Sunnyvale Armory for many years, we learned that the homeless will travel anywhere for assistance and don’t belong to any single city. On nights when we were too full, many would go by bus to the Gilroy Armory if they had room. And when the armory closed at 6:00 am, many would go the Boccardo Center in San Jose.
Funny how all your Mountain View residents jump down Sunnyvale’s throat when your own city doesn’t help out. Yet your council members sit pretty in their Pink Palace City Hall next to their theater while more and more of us live in our cars.
You might look at your own council before your shame others!
Being heartless when you have a chance to do for the less fortunate makes you and the city look bad. #becarefulkarmaahead
All you have to do to see how Sunnyvale treats homeless is to drive along El Camino and watch the cops harass the homeless all day long! That’s all they do! Then you look at what it costs the tax payers and one day the homeowners and shoppers will be asked to dig deep! Right now the books look nice but in the near future (when this next bubble busts) it will be another story. Many of these “wealthy” cities will be in worse shape than Stockton financially!
if you drive down 280 through SJ you can see cold homeless people huddled under overpasses in the 45-degree mornings. I cannot stand it.
what better use is there for all that industrial area near Moffett? how exactly does Sunnyvale dictate what citizens do with former (or current) military land? I live in Sunnyvale, and the suffering is so much more disturbing to me than seeing a homeless shelter near my house.
How Hawaii has had to work on the issues involving their homeless problem:
http://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/category/285127/homeless-in-hawaii
Note the converted shipping containers on Sand Island.
That solution is very possible for some of the ” valuable land ” that SV has..