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Emergency housing plan draws fire at meeting
By Sam Scott
Isabel Guadian lives in a San Jose family shelter. With two beds for her and her two young daughters, it's not high living. But Guadian says she's grateful.
"I'm glad it's here," she says. "It's stable. I know I have a place to stay."
Maury Kendall, a spokesperson for Emergency Housing Consortium, said, ideally, someone like Guadian would move from emergency housing to transitional housing and on to independent living. With an extremely tight housing market, however, there aren't many places EHC can send her. Family homelessness, Kendall said, is a growing problem with few resources to help solve it.
On Feb. 8, Sunnyvale City Council tabled a vote that would have given $1.4 million in federal grant money to EHC a Santa Clara County-based organization that provides emergency housing assistance to low-income and homeless individuals and families. The organization hopes to purchase a 24-unit apartment complex at 167 Acalanes Drive in Sunnyvale. The complex would house 20 low-income families who would pay rent in the $800 range, a rent Guadian said she could afford.
The delay came after nearby property owners voiced concerns about not being notified earlier of a change they think could affect their property values. The Acalanes property, they said, already has problem tenants, and could get worse if made into emergency housing.
Fadi Semaan, who owns property across the street from the apartment, said he canceled a business trip to Europe to come to the meeting. He was angry at receiving notification of the meeting from the city only one day in advance.
"They did not give us any time to see what exactly is going on," he said. "Is it like a housing project? It sounds like it." A group of about ten property owners who attended the meeting shared Semaan's sentiments.
City Attorney Valerie Armento said the law requires notification of a public meeting 72 hours beforehand, which she said the city did with time to spare by mailing letters on Feb. 4.
The notification, however, did not seem sufficient to the landowners. "I stand here in fear because I'm not familiar with what is being offered," property owner Tom Fair said.
Representatives for EHC-said the resistance was something they expected. When council asked if they had a problem with the delay, EHC said no. "We've been around for 20 years," said spokesman Ray Tovar. "Anytime we do anything anywhere, that [neighborhood concern] is the case. We try to alleviate the concerns."
EHC said it would actually make the dilapidated building better.
"We run a business," Kendall said. "Part of our charge is to improve the neighborhoods we're in so we can continue doing our work."
Councilman Fred Fowler agreed that EHC sites stand as positive providers of emergency housing. "I think having them as the owner of that place would be a benefit to that entire area," he said. "They have a very good track record."
Kendall said as current tenants in the building leave through attrition they would be replaced by families that could live in the property for a maximum of two years. Tennants must stay clean and sober as a condition of residence. Kendall said a resident failing a drug screening is grounds for expulsion from the program.
New tenants would be supervised and their progress checked by EHC counselors, Kendall said. He invited anyone to visit the organization's other sites, and Semaan said he would. Housing for the homeless is a good idea, Semaan said, but he doubted whether or not the EHC program is the way to do it. "It needs to be studied more," he said.
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Sunnyvale, California Since 1994
