Housing Advocates Protest 'The Jungle' Sweep

Housing advocates went to San Jose City Hall on April 28 to protest the city’s sweep of Coyote Meadows, the encampment better known as “The Jungle.” They said longtime residents were being displaced without the housing they were promised. (ktvu.com) The protest group delivered a petition to the city Housing Department and challenged the city’s “by-name” priority list for interim housing placements. Advocates said some residents were wrongly treated as newcomers after the list closed. (ktvu.com) The city says it spent nearly two months doing outreach in multiple languages before the cleanup and identified about 125 people who requested housing help. As of April 28, officials said 56% of those residents had already been accommodated. (ktvu.com) San Jose officially began clearing the encampment on April 15 after about 50 days of warning. City officials said 109 people had agreed to move into transitional housing, mainly at the Cerone Interim Housing Community. (nbcbayarea.com) The site near Story and Senter roads along Coyote Creek is one of San Jose’s oldest encampments and the city’s last major one. It drew national attention in 2012 as a symbol of Silicon Valley’s homelessness crisis. (ktvu.com) (nbcbayarea.com) Residents and advocates say the city’s numbers do not match what people on the ground were told. San José Spotlight reported on April 21 that more than 30 people had moved into Cerone and other temporary shelters, while some others said outreach workers told them they had “fell through the cracks.” (sanjosespotlight.com) One resident, Art Enriquez, told KTVU he was still waiting despite heart surgery last year. Advocates filed an Americans with Disabilities Act accommodation request seeking faster placement because of his medical condition. (ktvu.com) The city has said people left off the closed list can still go through the Taylor Street Navigation Hub for services and future motel or interim housing placements as space opens. Officials have also said the area will become a “no encampment zone” after the cleanup. (sanjosespotlight.com) (nbcbayarea.com) Crews may need up to 60 days to remove debris and pollutants from the site under environmental rules. For residents still waiting, the fight at City Hall was about whether the sweep ends with a shelter bed or another move back to the street. (nbcbayarea.com)