A Mountain View hotel moved one step closer Tuesday to being converted into permanent housing, despite opposition by critics who fear that it would simply become a shelter for homeless people.
If approved by the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors in November, The Crestview, a 61-room hotel located off of El Camino Real in Mountain View near the border of Sunnyvale, would be purchased by Santa Clara County using $16.6 million in Project Homekey funds. A project championed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, Homekey converted over 1,600 Bay Area hotel, apartment and other units into permanent housing last year. In September, the state offered another $2.75 billion for cities, counties and nonprofits for upcoming projects.
After an extended period of public comment that included 49 individuals both supportive and opposed to the Mountain View project, the five supervisors unanimously voted Tuesday to give the county executive the authority to apply for Homekey funds. While the move wasn’t a final decision on the site — that will be made on Nov. 2 — no supervisor raised any major objections to the project.
Critics of the proposal, while acknowledging the overall issue of homelessness in the region, raised safety and transparency concerns and described the project as turning The Crestview into a “homeless shelter.”
But Supervisor Mike Wasserman pushed back on this description, clarifying that the site would be permanent housing with one-year leases where residents are paying rent. He also had a representative from the county’s housing department explain the multiple levels of security that applicants for the Mountain View site would have to go pass through to get a spot, which includes a criminal background check.
“I think there’s a real misunderstanding just based on repetitiveness of the messages that were read today,” said Wasserman, referring to some of the public’s distress about the project. He also said that critiques of the site’s conversion into permanent housing were “duplicative,” calling some of them “simply not true.”
Supervisor Joseph Simitian, whose district includes The Crestview , said he was sympathetic to complaints that there was not enough public awareness about the proposal. He noted that despite multiple news articles published about the project and previous public discussions about it, outreach efforts have been “tough.”
“We still hear from a lot of folks that they haven’t felt fully informed or engaged about the pending development,” he said. “And I believe them, just to be clear. It is a riddle we’re going to have to solve at some point here.”
On Oct. 27, the county’s Office of Supportive Housing will be holding a public discussion about the development.
Supporters of the project said the hotel’s location, which sits near a number of bus lines, would be convenient for potential residents. Others pointed out the area’s expensive housing costs. Aaron Eckhouse, who works for a pro-housing nonprofit in Sacramento, called the project “A mistake for the county to pass up.”
The proposal has been a source of division among community members for close to a year. In January, the Mountain View city council moved ahead with the purchase of the site, including a commitment of $3.7 million from its own coffers for renovation efforts. The dust-up included petitions both for and against the project, with hundreds signing on to both.
Source: www.mercurynews.com