On Sunday night, Milpitas councilmember Karina Dominguez spent the night in her car at a homeless encampment near the city library.
Tonight she pitched a tent outside city hall to draw attention to the plight of the city’s homeless community on the eve of a presentation by Mayor Rich Tran’s homeless task force.
“What is it like when you’re tenting out?” asked Dominguez, who said she expected to be joined by about 15 other individuals at city hall — some of whom are homeless.
“While there are reports and while there is data, one of the things that is not found are the stories of those that live on the streets of Milpitas. And that is very important if we are truly going to invest in (the mayor’s) plan.”
Dominguez, who has frequently clashed with the mayor over policy issues, said that she’s trying to sort out whether the mayor’s task force has ideas that align with the priorities of those who are homeless in Milpitas. The councilmember said she’s also camping out to protest the mayor’s reluctance to fund a program that assesses housing situations for the city’s homeless.
The mayor, however, is having none of it.
“Anybody can sleep outside,” said Tran. “And I just don’t know if that’s going to solve homelessness in Milpitas by sleeping outside.” He added later, “I wish that theatrical politicians out there would focus on creating solutions and not making it about themselves.”
Dominguez described her first night at an encampment near the city’s library as an “eye-opening” experience. The encampment, located on Railroad Ave., was recently called out in a Facebook post by the mayor — who said he expected it to be cleared by March 1.
“Nobody should have to live in those conditions,” the councilmember said.
The councilmember isn’t the first local politician in the area to sleep alongside homeless residents. In 2016, former San Jose councilman Tam Nguyen spent a night at a city-sanctioned homeless encampment in Portand, Ore. to see if it was a solution he could bring back to his home city. And in 2006, then Assembly member Sally Lieber spent a handful of days homeless in San Jose and stayed at nearby shelters to better understand the experience.
The Milpitas councilmember’s actions come as a wider rift forms among city officials and nonprofit leaders over how to tackle an issue that has plagued many of Milpitas’ neighboring cities.
On Tuesday, Tran’s homelessness task force will put forth a set of recommendations that include city-sanctioned encampments for tents and parking for RVs, a centralized website and hotline to educate residents about homelessness, as well as a job-training program. The task force was created in January 2021 at the direction of the mayor and seven Milpitas residents serve as members.
Robert Jung, who oversees the local nonprofit Hope for the Unhoused, is doubtful about the task force’s suggestions.
“The policies that have been talked about at council do not really seem to solve the problem,” said Jung, who says there are about 110 to 120 homeless residents in the city. “They seem to move the problem and sort of move it from one place to another.”
Jung said that the city’s main priority should be getting people off the streets, which the mayor’s plan partially addresses. But he remains unconvinced that any of the plans will be followed through. He added that past actions by the mayor, particularly his opposition in 2020 to a Project Homekey site that offers homeless housing, has left him skeptical about how much the city is willing to do.
The task force’s ideas come as the mayor has taken a more aggressive approach towards tackling homelessness, including a proposal in January that would ban encampments near certain neighborhoods, schools and daycares. Tran also has posted frequently on his public Facebook account about encampments in the city, including one in front of Milpitas Unified School District that was later cleared by authorities late last year.
More recently, the mayor recommended that the city cut funding for its Homeless Engagement and Assessment Team, or HEAT, a central point of contention between him and Councilmember Dominguez.
The county-led program, which the city council approved in Nov. 2020, helps assess homeless residents for future housing placement, placing individuals in a queue based on immediate need. While all four council members approved the program at a cost of $200,000, Tran abstained at the time.
Tran says that the county should cover the cost of the program instead of the city and has suggested that the remaining money should go towards his task force’s recommendations.
“I don’t want to eliminate the program — I’d just rather not pay for it,” said Tran. “If we can get it for free, we can get it for free. I like getting things for free. It’s like I’m at Costco, and I’m going to go for every free sample.”
According to Conseulo Hernandez, who oversees the county’s housing efforts, the county would not cover the costs for the city’s HEAT program if funding is pulled and would have to devote the resources it currently has in Milpitas elsewhere.
Dominguez and Jung claim that the program is crucial in getting homeless residents off the streets.
It just makes no logical sense to go backwards and pull funding for a critical tool,” she said.
Jung added that his nonprofit would be “significantly impacted” without the program.
Meanwhile, Dominguez and the mayor disagree on how Tran’s task force and its ideas could be funded.
“Dominguez has suggested that the city use American Rescue Plan Funds — money that comes from the federal government as part of a $1.9 trillion pandemic recovery stimulus package signed by the president in March 2021 — to fund proposals from the mayor’s task force. Dominguez said she would specifically want to use $75,000 that is currently being proposed to pay for an upcoming July 4th ferris wheel and parade.
But the mayor dismissed the idea.
“We’re looking to celebrate,” he said firmly.