SAN JOSE, Calif. (KRON) — In the South Bay, the housing crisis continues to impact low-income and families of color amid COVID-19 — advocates are calling for local governments to prioritize affordable housing over developer profits.
Last week, San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo and other local leaders welcomed Governor Gavin Newsom as he announced additional funding Project HomeKey — a statewide initiative that buys different motels, hotels or apartment buildings and turns them into permanent or interim housing for unhoused residents.
Housing advocates are fighting back saying the event fell short of addressing existing issues to provide affordable housing.
“I’m actually here to call out the celebration last week from Governor Gavin Newsom … he came down to celebrate the Bernal Monterey Interim Housing development and that’s great we should be celebrating those kinds of victories,” said Huy Tran, co-founder of Unhoused Response Group.
“However the victory can also seem hollow when the kind of policies the city is putting into place incentives a ton of market rate developments instead of focusing on the kind of housing developments that actually help the people here in San Jose who are struggling right now.”
In 2017 — Liccardo set a goal of building 25,000 residential units by 2022 with nearly 12,000 units already built out of the 15,000 to meet the plan’s market-rate goals, says Tran.
“We want to publicize the fact that the city council is moving in the wrong direction … It does a good job taking care of corporations, it does a great job taking care of Google, a great job taking care of Apple, but our homelessness from 2017 to 2019 has gone up 42 percent,” said Sandy Perry with Affordable Housing Network.
“I’ve been in San Jose since 1990 … there’s now this big gulf between the rich and the poor here and more and more people are falling into the poor category,”
“The rich are getting so fabulously wealthy that they don’t even know what to do with all their money, well, we have some good suggestions, they need to build affordable housing for the poor.”
For Will Smith, a San Jose resident and member of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 332 — says the high rent prices may one day force his family to move elsewhere.
“It’s not a secret that San Jose is the most expensive market in the country and when the city council is giving 56 million in subsidies to developers, they’re not paying their fair share towards the community, towards fixing homeless issues and towards affordable housing,” said Smith.
“You’re seeing more and more development but not affordable development … i’m afraid that my children won’t be able to afford to live here in San Jose, the place that they were born and raised in.”
In the coming months — the city will have the challenge in figuring out how it will assist its residents who can’t afford to pay their rent as thousands of Californians fear the threat of evictions with the end to the statewide moratorium ending Jan. 31.
Editor’s note: We have since followed up with the city of San Jose and will interview Mayor Sam Liccardo in the coming days to address statements made in this story.