Sunnyvale continues to try to solve the issue of people living in their vehicles, but concrete solutions remain elusive.
At its April 21 meeting, the Sunnyvale City Council heard from city employees that city-subsidized services for homeless people living in their vehicles are not viable.
Amanda Sztoltz, the city’s housing officer, told the council that site feasibility and operational cost are barriers to establishing a safe parking program on city-owned land. Safe parking sites have utilities, including showers, security, sanitation and social services to assist people to transition out of homelessness.
“While safe parking is often discussed as the primary solution to address vehicular homelessness, our analysis shows that it presents significant challenges in Sunnyvale and would have a relatively low impact at a high cost,” Sztoltz said. “These costs are high relative to the number of people they would serve and the outcomes that would be produced.”
Because of a lack of extended funding for safe parking, city employees recommended the city council address vehicular homelessness in a “multi-pronged approach” designed to get similar results. Those options included pursuing the construction of tiny homes, instituting an RV buy-back program paired with housing assistance and RV permit parking.
The recommendations come more than two years after the council directed city employees to return with options for safe parking. Many public commenters decried the recommendation, noting how neighboring cities such as San Jose and Mountain View managed to make safe parking work.
One public commenter, Chuck F., said Sunnyvale doesn’t look for solutions, it “looks for excuses.”
Agnes Veith, with Livable Sunnyvale, called the recommendation “baffling.”
“Simply declaring the program unworkable after setting the expectation that it would be delivered and multiple requests from the council to develop a safe parking program raises serious concern about follow-through and accountability,” she said.
But things weren’t as simple as they seemed.
Trudi Ryan, the city’s community development director, pointed to the cities that have safe parking managed to get it funded by the county during the pandemic. Doing so wasn’t viable for Sunnyvale at the time, since the city didn’t have employees to support such an effort. Further, differences between the cities also made the comparison inapt, she added.
“It is very easy to compare ourselves to other cities, but our situations are very different from each other,” Ryan said. “Mountain View’s homeless population is almost entirely in vehicles, and their numbers are considerably higher than us even though their base population is quite a bit lower than ours. It’s tempting to say, ‘I want what they have,’ but maybe we’ve done a good job over the years of preventing homelessness.”
The council wasn’t convinced.
Mayor Larry Klein said he wasn’t ready to “give up on safe parking.” Other council members echoed his comments.
Vice Mayor Richard Mehlinger said the city has been discussing safe parking for years, and has failed to deliver, something he said leaves him “very frustrated.” Further, he said, he suspected that if the city opted to build tiny homes, in two-to-four years, the council would be listening to excuses as to why they don’t work.
He said he “could not accept” there was no place in the city for safe parking, adding that people are living in the “most dire poverty.”
“When I look at the misery on our streets, it is like looking at a printout at an edition of Dante,” he said. “It is hellish what I see on our streets.”
City Manager Tim Kirby told the council that city employees will need to return to the council to determine what the city needs to bump to do the work.
Because she lives close to one of the proposed sites, Council Member Eileen Le recused herself.
Contact David Alexander at d.todd.alexander@gmail.com
Previous Sunnyvale City Council Meetings:
Sunnyvale Creates Stronger Safeguards to Police Surveillance
Sunnyvale Establishes ICE-free Zones
State Law Forces Sunnyvale’s Hand to Approve Housing Development
Sunnyvale Behind on Housing Allocations
