A clean business is a thriving business, something Francisco Quintero, owner of El Maza, knows all too well. He's proud of his restaurant in the Luna Park District of Downtown San Jose. But he's still dealing with bad reviews, due to the conditions along the street outside his front door. "Saying that it wasn't very safe to come here, that it was too dirty," Quintero said. "That's not a good sensation when you're putting all your money into your business for someone to come and criticize that or telling other people not to come to this area."
If it wasn't for us, all the debris, needles and all that stuff that we found - drug pipes and all that nasty stuff - it wouldn't be so good for children to even be in that environment," volunteer Mercy Wong said. "It was really horrible to see. But I'm really glad they have the Downtown Street Team to clean all that up."
San Jose is expanding their Downtown Streets Team coverage area to include the Luna business district, as well as the Alum Rock, East Santa Clara Street, Calle Willow and the East Village districts. It's a team dedicated to beautifying San Jose, made up of members of the unhoused community.
In just a few hours in this area, the team cleaned up 10 bags of trash - it's just a fraction of the 7 million gallons of debris DST has cleared since 2011.
[
Collection
]
[
|
...
]