In response to your editorial titled “Unshackle Measure A,” by the end of this year Villas on the Park will be finished.
Located in downtown San Jose, the project will house 83 people who were formerly homeless. Villas is one of the first supportive housing developments in the region and is funded through the City of San Jose and Santa Clara County’s Measure A initiative. Villas is part of the solution to ending homelessness.
Like any affordable or supportive housing development, the process of building is complicated, including who will own the land—the developer, the city or the county? But if supportive housing is being developed, the issue of who owns the land is the least of our concerns. As an agency that is committed to the mission of ending homelessness, we are more concerned about getting people into permanent supportive housing.
We worry about people who are experiencing chronic homelessness and struggling with health concerns. We worry about people who are dying on our streets. We care about the surrounding neighborhood and making sure the community will accept our program and the location of our buildings. We care about increasing the overall quality of life in the neighborhoods that house our buildings. And, we are concerned that our developments have enough supportive services to ensure that our residents will never have to spend another night on the street.
This is how we will end homelessness. This is what we care about.
Megan Colvard, PATH, San Jose
