"In the eight months since the Berryessa safe parking site opened, nonprofit WeHOPE has moved 24 people into permanent housing and 11 people into temporary housing. That's compared to the 15 residents moved from the Santa Teresa VTA light rail station safe parking site into permanent housing from July 2023 to June 2025. The latter location is run by nonprofit LifeMoves. Both locations were designed to accommodate residents living in their RVs, as the city bans unhoused RV dwellers from the streets."
""We put a lot of time into training our case managers, and our case managers engaging with our clients," Garcia told San José Spotlight. WeHOPE trains case managers for one week, which covers note taking, dealing with implicit bias, problem solving, resource building, navigating clients with substance use, housing placements and more. After that, new case managers will shadow experienced workers until they are ready to go solo."
In eight months the Berryessa safe parking site moved 24 people into permanent housing and 11 into temporary housing. The Santa Teresa VTA safe parking site moved 15 residents into permanent housing from July 2023 to June 2025. Both sites accommodate residents living in RVs because the city bans unhoused RV dwellers from the streets. WeHOPE attributes results to case management, hiring staff who reflect compassion and service, one-week training covering note taking, implicit bias, problem solving, resource building, substance use navigation and housing placements, and shadowing before solo work. The organization often promotes from within, citing a security guard promoted to case manager. The city has 128 safe parking spaces and nearly 900 lived-in RVs and cars, and has significantly scaled up temporary housing, nearly tripling available spaces, with no concrete plans for more safe parking sites.
Read at San Jose Spotlight
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