Santa Clara County Water District Considers Banning Camps Near Waterways

Citing increased safety threats and environmental hazards, Santa Clara County’s top water resources agency will consider an ordinance Tuesday aimed at reducing homeless encampments along the county’s waterways.

Homeless advocates, however, have called the bill inhumane and criticized it for criminalizing the homeless.

On Tuesday, the Santa Clara Valley Water District board will consider and decide whether to approve an ordinance banning encampments, public nuisances such as radios or fireworks, and activities that could create a danger to Valley Water employees or the public.

Valley Water officials said there has been an increase in threats of armed violence, verbal assaults, physical altercations, vicious encounters with dogs and fire-related incidents that have threatened the safety of Valley Water personnel who work primarily along creeks, waterways and water supply facilities.

Valley Water spokesman Matt Keller said many of the district’s flood protection projects are being damaged by the encampments.

“The damage to our streams is a major problem, not to mention the fact that sometimes our workers face safety issues when they enter the streams and can’t do their jobs,” Keller said.

A Valley Water report also said that threats or security issues require investigation, assessment and implementation of mitigation measures, which can often take days, “potentially suspending or delaying mission-critical work at that immediate location.”

While opponents of the ordinance say they understand the need to clean up waterways, many have expressed concern about how clearing encampments will displace vulnerable populations who have nowhere else to turn.

A letter signed by leaders of nonprofit organizations PitStop Outreach, St. Joseph’s Family Center, South County Compassion Center, Carry the Vision, Law Foundation of Silicon Valley and MADDAD said that in the absence of adequate housing and shelter, the creeks offer the “best of bad options available.”

“Especially now, in the midst of a potentially deadly heat wave, it seems inconceivable to consider prohibiting sick and elderly people from sleeping in any cool place they can find. However, Valley Water is considering just that solution,” the letter states.

“If people are now evicted from Valley Water properties, they will have no other refuge and will likely take shelter in the entrances of the town centre and behind local businesses,” the letter continues. “They will have no stable place to live, no place to store medication and paperwork for housing, and will not be easy for social workers, mental health teams and outreach teams to find.”

Todd Langton, executive director of the San Jose nonprofit Agape Silicon Valley, which provides clothing, food and water to people living outdoors, said it is inhumane to reduce the number of homeless without giving them a place to go. He said Silicon Valley’s “cat-and-mouse game” approach to addressing homelessness only prolongs the situation and often results in layoffs and a waste of money and resources.

“I wish all of our agencies and nonprofits could work together,” Langton said. “The city, the county, Caltrans and Valley Water are not working together, which is part of the problem. And all of these big nonprofits are not working together either. The way we handle homelessness here in Silicon Valley is extremely dysfunctional.”

The Valley Water meeting is scheduled for 1 p.m. Tuesday at 5750 Almaden Expressway in San Jose or online.