SAN JOSE — The cabin tents and shower trailers at San Jose's innovative and now-defunct homeless encampment Hope Village are long gone, but some transients have begun returning to the location three months after it was shut down.
Some people without homes established a new encampment at the Ruff Drive site because they simply didn't have anywhere else to go.
"Constantly moving ... it's not having an opportunity to have a stable spot where you rise up from if you chose to," said James Imm. "If you are forced to move, what are you to do? Put everything you own into two shopping carts, then guard it? It's virtually impossible."
The folks who came back to the Hope Village site have once again been swept out by city workers, according to the San Jose Spotlight.
Now, people are wondering if there will ever be another sanctioned encampment in San Jose.
Hope Village was supposed to be relocated to the Willow Glen neighborhood. But those plans fell through after Willow Glen's residents objected. There are no plans to recreate the encampment at this time.
San Jose now has more than 6,000 transients, according to the 2019 Point In Time homeless survey. That's an increase of 42% compared to the survey two years ago.
3 months after Hope Village was dismantled some homeless residents are returning to the once sanctioned encampment. Not surprisingly, it’s already been swept by he city. Some transients are camping along the nearby Guadalupe River. pic.twitter.com/UaSB0ha0hq
— Matt Bigler (@mattbigler740) June 3, 2019
