Santa Clara County, San Jose and Sunnyvale Have Not Filed Required Shelter Condition Reports

Santa Clara County, San Jose and Sunnyvale have not submitted the yearly reports on homeless shelter conditions that California law requires, according to a CalMatters investigation. Officials from all three told San José Spotlight they either received no shelter complaints or that the complaints they did receive were unfounded, which they said exempted them from filing.

The state Legislature passed the law in 2021 after years of reported violence, theft, mistreatment of residents by workers and unsanitary conditions in the county's shelters, based on interviews with residents and advocates. It requires localities to inspect a shelter after a complaint, issue violation notices to operators and report each year on conditions. Operators that fail to fix violations are barred from receiving state funding.

Under the law, cities and counties that receive complaints must file yearly reports with the California Department of Housing and Community Development. The reports must describe hazardous conditions, corrected and uncorrected violations, and operators with more than three violations in a six-month period. With no reports filed, shelter operators remain largely unchecked and continue to receive state funds.

Several shelter residents said they did not know they could take complaints directly to the city or county rather than to the operator. Complaints given to operators often go no further. Tavia Jones, who stayed on and off at the Sunnyvale shelter from 2018 to 2020, said workers yelled at her and took donated clothes and food meant for residents, and that the closeness of the men's and women's sections left her feeling unsafe. She never filed a written grievance. "I just needed to get out of there," she said, and she chose to sleep in a tent instead.

The Bill Wilson Center took over the Sunnyvale shelter in July after the county moved away from HomeFirst amid allegations of racism and concerns about inadequate services. Since then, multiple residents said, signs of scabies and lice have appeared. One resident said they were not offered an extended hotel stay despite continuing symptoms, and showed a reporter a doctor-prescribed scabies medication. Bill Wilson Center moved seven residents with presumed scabies to a hotel for a week. CEO Josh Selo said no cases have been confirmed without a skin test, and that public health has cleared everyone to return.

Daniel Gutierrez, the center's chief program officer for shelters, said written grievances stay at the shelter and are not automatically sent to the county. "If we have to loop in the county we will," he said. Selo said incidents, including injuries and presumed scabies, must be reported directly to the county. Kathryn Kaminski, acting director of the county Office of Supportive Housing, said staff visit all sites at least monthly and that ideally a grievance is resolved between the nonprofit and the client. The office did not say how many complaints it has received since 2021.

The county owns the Sunnyvale shelter, but a spokesperson said it can only investigate and cite shelters in unincorporated areas, because most shelters sit in cities where it lacks building code enforcement authority. That leaves inspections to cities such as San Jose and Sunnyvale.

San Jose, which has 11 shelters, received one complaint in 2021 and two in 2023, according to a city spokesperson. The 2021 complaint was withdrawn, and the two 2023 complaints, both about the same shelter, were found unfounded after investigation. No citations were issued. The city also does routine inspections, most on a five-year cycle, and has inspected 10 shelters since 2021 without citations. Code enforcement does not see complaints made directly to operators.

The stakes involve substantial public money. The county has at least 16 shelters and funds eight of them. It spent nearly $6.8 million last fiscal year on shelters, motel vouchers and temporary housing, mostly from state grants, and is expected to spend $28 million this fiscal year, $16 million of it from state grants. The county's homeless population has grown 3% since 2019 to nearly 10,000, and San Jose has the fourth highest number of homeless people per capita in the country, at 6,340.

Jones now lives in an apartment on West San Carlos Street and faces eviction with no known place to go. She said she still will not return to a shelter. "I will never go there again and I will never recommend anyone to go there," she said.