On any given night, upwards of 50 homeless people could be found camping out in Sunnyvale’s Fair Oaks Park earlier this winter. But a collaborative effort between different agencies in the county has found shelter from the cold for nearly all of them.
While not anywhere near the scale of the homeless encampment known as the Jungle in San Jose, where an estimated 300 people lived, it took six different agencies several weeks to help those in Sunnyvale’s encampment find shelter.
The makeshift tent community in the park included everyone from families with young children and pets to elderly men and women. Homeless people have been known to set up camp in the park across the street from the former Sunnyvale Armory, which served as a cold weather shelter for more than 20 years. But with the closure of the north county shelter in March 2014, the homeless in the park grew to unprecedented numbers.
“It became a new phenomenon in Sunnyvale,” said Marie Bernard, executive director of Sunnyvale Community Services.
The nonprofit, which works to prevent homelessness in the city, provides emergency services such as assistance with rent to supplying groceries. SCS is also designated by United Way Silicon Valley as an Emergency Assistance Network, serving as a warming center in the winter and a cooling center in the summer.
“Sunnyvale Public Safety, Public Works and Parks were the ones seeing the effects of homelessness; it’s our mission to prevent it,” Bernard said. “We move heaven and earth to do that, but it’s getting harder with rents getting so expensive. We are approaching a crisis here, which is good in a way because it forces us to start thinking outside of the box.”
SCS met every week leading up to a cold spell in late December with Valley HealthCare for the Homeless Project, Downtown Streets Team, HomeFirst, InnVision Shelter Network and Sunnyvale Public Safety and Public Works to coordinate the effort.
The group working in tandem with the county ensured that 190 additional beds were opened throughout the region to get people out of the cold over the course of this winter’s first inclement weather period from Dec. 28 through Jan. 1.
SCS itself collected cold weather supplies to give out to homeless including gloves and sleeping bags.
By the first week in December, all but one tent in Fair Oaks Park had been dismantled and by the second week all were cleared out.
According to Bob Dolci, county homeless concerns coordinator, outreach and follow up were key in the success of this effort. The increased financial support from the county also played a big role.
“The county provided $1.4 million when it normally has contributed $625,000, so this year’s effort was very significant in what it was trying to do because of the absence of the Sunnyvale armory,” Dolci said.
The money was earmarked specifically to expand homelessness reduction and prevention programs as well as the search for a new cold weather shelter.
The county spent the past several months working with the city of Sunnyvale and nonprofit partners to find a replacement for the Sunnyvale Armory shelter site, but no suitable facility has been found to date. According to the county, a tight real estate market has stymied efforts.
The search does continue with the recent hiring of a consultant, Dolci said.
New this year also was intensive case management for each person, something clients of the Armory did not previously receive, Dolci added. The outcomes of their cases will also be documented to better track what worked well and what did not.
Since the effort in late December/early January, a few more tents have popped up in Fair Oaks Park, according to Sunnyvale DPS Chief Frank Grgurina. But the collaborative effort continues to work together to help those in need.
“It wasn’t something that happened overnight, but was really about the process and following up with those folks.” Grgurina said. “We will continue to work with the groups involved and as issues come up we will address those collectively.”
SCS continues to collect donations of cold weather supplies for the homeless.
