Simitian pushes effort to make safe parking feasible and effective

SAN JOSE - The Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors today supported (5-0) Supervisor Joe Simitian’s proposal to expand efforts to make safe parking programs more feasible and effective.

In the past five years, the number of Santa Clara County residents living in cars and recreational vehicles (RVs) has increased significantly. In the latest Santa Clara County Homeless Census 18% of unhoused County residents were found to be living in vehicles – up from 8% in 2015 and 2017. 

While not a long-term solution, safe parking allows residents to have stability in where they sleep each night while they seek permanent housing. Ideally, safe parking programs in the County would allow vehicle residents a safe and designated place to park while pairing them with case management. 

“Obviously,” said Simitian, “identifying a sufficient number of sites and spaces is the necessary first step, and that’s been a struggle. My office and I are hoping to spearhead a coordinated effort to identify more sites this spring in Mountain View and Palo Alto – two cities who have been working to address this challenge.”

The County has already committed over $750,000 in funding for safe parking programs, helping to support case management to help households obtain services and stable housing, program administration, and the identification of new lots. However, limitations discovered during initial efforts have precluded these programs from being as effective as they could be.

“It’s become increasingly clear that some of these programs would benefit from additional County support and engagement. Cities have faced a number of barriers to opening safe parking programs, including finding appropriate sites, the lack of insurance for non-profit partners, and challenges in establishing 24-hour lots. We need to identify more sites, find a way to keep them open 24/7 and connect local non-profits with the insurance coverage they need to get the job done,” said Simitian.

Simitian’s proposal directs the County to work with local municipalities, non-profits, and community members to support successful safe parking programs in the following ways:

• Explore leasing parking lots, at a very low or no cost, if doing so would make safe parking programs more effective including potentially allowing the County to operate lots open for 24 hours – something frequently requested by vehicle dwellers who otherwise need to move their RVs onto city streets during the day (when “overnight” lots close); 
• In cases where insurance coverage is a barrier to opening safe parking sites, County staff should continue to work to help resolve these issues;
• Continue to offer its expertise and partnership to assist in what must be a multi-pronged effort to find appropriate sites; and,
• As many safe parking programs funded by the County were initially funded as pilot programs, as staff, non-profits, and partner cities find other sites to open lots and identify more effective ways of running the safe parking programs, staff should report to the
  board with funding needs to adequately scale and revise the programs to meet the need.

“We need to figure out whether we can really scale these efforts. Each small effort is immensely helpful to the people we reach, but I think we can do more. And we should,” said Simitian.

“While having enough affordable housing to house this population is the ultimate goal  the County and our partners should pursue, there’s more work to be done to remove barriers for folks looking for a safe, designated place to sleep at night while seeking permanent housing,” said Simitian.