Santa Clara Valley Water's encampment ban along waterways goes into effect
People living in encampments near San Jose rivers, creeks and waterways are on notice and could be told to pack up and leave immediately due to the Santa Clara Valley Water District's new encampment ban going into effect.
The ban is designed to address threats to public safety and the environment, but water officials say they may not enforce the ordinance just yet.
For unhoused South Bay resident Anna Garcie, her spot along a stretch of Coyote Creek has been home for three years now.
"So the red thing is my shower," said Garcia as she gestured to her small encampment. "And then that's my tent, that's where I sleep, under the other gray tarp."
In that time, she's lost her dog and figured how how to live alongside the 30 to 40 others residing in the makeshift neighborhood of tents along the creek.
"For a lot of us, this is all we have," she said. "This is all we have. If you guys want to kick us out, where are we gonna go? How are we gonna live?"
That question is now looming with Valley Water's new resource protection ordinance.
"I just know that they're, starting today, gonna kick everybody out," Garcia said of the rumors about clearing the encampment.
Mark Bilski is with Valley Water's Good Neighbor Program. He says the goal isn't necessarily removing anyone, but resolving so-called "high-priority problems" including encampments that have incidents or violence or serious impact on the environment related to cars, hazardous waste or excessive amounts of trash.
"Trash dumping, or the discharge of debris, or hazardous materials into the waterway," explained Bilski. "That's something we just can't allow to happen or continue in any way."
In other words, the unhoused need to keep the encampments small and clean.
"If people are able to adhere to the guidelines, for the most part, then Valley Water is willing to focus our enforcement efforts elsewhere, on the worst impacts, trying to prevent those," Bilski said.
That sort of selective enforcement could provide a reprieve for Garcia and the other people living alongside Coyote Creek.
"That would be good, because there's a lot of us out here not causing an impact," Garcia said of the plan to work with campers. "We don't throw anything into the creek."
Garcia says she works hard to keep her spot clean, but admits others do not. There are also problems caused by those who don't live at the encampment.
"Other people come and throw garbage," she explained. "Like, I've had people come and throw garbage right there. Like, would I be considered high priority or low prior priority?"
Who will be held responsible for the trash along the waterways is just one question.
"What I don't get is how they're going to kick us out if they don't have anywhere for us to go," Garcia said.
Valley Water acknowledges the lack of available housing and that's why they're hoping for a kind of working relationship with those on the land while they wait for more places to put more people.
"Right now, there's just nowhere for people to go," Bilski agreed. "What we're hoping is that our enforcement of our ordinance will ramp up in tandem with housing and shelter coming online. So that when people are removed from waterways, they're going into housing. Interim housing, or even better, permanent housing."
That means the wait for housing will likely continue for those already in line, like Garcia.
"I've been on the waitlist for like a year and a half already," she said. "So I don't think I'll get housing. But that's just me. I don't know."
So the new ordinance going into effect marks the start of a kind of negotiation as the water department, the city, and all of the people living in these spaces began to sort out what is highly problematic, what is not, and ultimately, what the future holds for the people now living along the creeks of San Jose.
