SAN JOSE, Calif. (KRON) — San Jose will open its first-ever “Safe Sleeping Site” for homeless people seeking alternatives to city shelters. On Thursday, city officials announced that the sleeping site will be located downtown at 1157 East Taylor Street, next to Watson Park.
“This location was selected from eight potential sites that the San Jose City Council unanimously approved for further analysis. If it continues to prove suitable, it will be the first safe sleeping site to open in San Jose,” the mayor’s office wrote.
San Jose is home to nearly 1 million residents. About 6,340 are unsheltered, a 2023 point-in-time count found.
This week, representatives of Mayor Matt Mahan and District 3 Councilmember Omar Torres canvassed neighborhoods around Watson Park to notify homeowners of the Safe Sleeping Site plan.
Mayor Matt Mahan said, “We did a clean-up at Watson Park, and the conditions were shocking — a greenspace that should be open and available for all was covered in human excrement, filled with debris and overrun by shopping carts. We can’t allow our public spaces to fall into squalor any more than we can allow our homeless neighbors to live in it. This area will be the first to see the benefits of this new solution to homelessness — one that will preserve our park and protect it from re-encampment.”