Tenant Letter: Lived Experience in Donner Lofts Affordable Housing
PUBLIC RECORD — Below is the full letter from a tenant at Donner Lofts which was sent to the San Jose City Council during a housing discussion. This is available from the city website in the link at the bottom of the article.
From:
Sent: Sunday, February 12, 2023 10:45 PM
To: The Office of Mayor Ma Mahan <mayor@sanjoseca.gov>; District3 <district3@sanjoseca.gov>; District1 <district1@sanjoseca.gov>; District2 <District2@sanjoseca.gov>; District4 <District4@sanjoseca.gov>; District5 <District5@sanjoseca.gov>; District 6 <district6@sanjoseca.gov>; District7 <District7@sanjoseca.gov>; District8 <district8@sanjoseca.gov>; District9 <district9@sanjoseca.gov>; District 10 <District10@sanjoseca.gov>; mayorinbox@sanjoseca.gov; City Clerk <city.clerk@sanjoseca.gov>
Subject: 23–257 — Homelessness Commiee Report
[External Email]
Dear Mayor and Council Members:
Today I am speaking on my own behalf and not that of any community organizaons.
I agree with the goal in the report that we should be concerned about keeping unhoused people who receive housing from returning to the streets. However, the current “housing retenon” stascs are inflated because Abode Services has chosen to strong-arm the management (MidPen Housing and MidPen Services) into retaining tenants who either need more supports (that Abode won’t provide) or need to live in a different environment.
I live in District 3 at Donner Los. I’m not “in a program” and my rent is indexed to the Area Median Income, so I believe that means I’m in “workforce housing.” When I put my name in their housing loery in 2015, and when I was picked in 2016, I thought it was a great idea to create a community with a diversity of tenants instead of segregang by class or income. People in “essenal jobs” who can’t afford market rate housing, rered/disabled people, and people who had been unhoused could live together. Great idea, unsasfactory implementaon.
Tenants who are unable to care for themselves independently should receive In Home Support services but they don’t always receive those services. We have had fires in the building when Housing First tenants who can’t safely use a stove try to cook.
One Housing First tenant’s cataract surgery was delayed over a year because his case managers kept canceling his appointments at Stanford Eye Center because they were quing their jobs without noce. He was nearly evicted for issues from his vision impairment during that year; luckily, Abode got him help from the Law Foundaon.
A Housing First tenant, who was sensive to noise, pulled a knife on the building’s janitor for making too much noise mopping. He yelled abuse and threats at me every me he could hear me in the hallway, which made me afraid to leave my apartment. I don’t know if he needs supervision, treatment, or a different environment — but now he lives on the street again.
The Housing First tenant whose guest was shot by police on Memorial Day in 2017 had a history of explosive behavior towards others while using methamphetamine. I saw him flip furniture at community events twice. He was doing meth with a friend when he set his apartment on fire aer arguing with Security about a noise complaint. His apartment was full of garbage he had taken home from dumpsters. His friend with the axe had already assaulted someone in the elevator. When SJPD held a meeng to jusfy the shoong, they were surprised to hear that tenants were so afraid of the man that they were relieved to hear he’d been shot to death. Anyway, I don’t know if the Housing First arsonist is sll in jail or has been released to homelessness again.
According to the tenant grapevine, we have had 20–25 deaths in or next to the building since 2016. (A tenant was killed in the crossfire of a drug deal gone bad outside the building a few years ago.) We have visits nearly every day from SJPD, SJFD, and County EMS. Most of these are for Housing First tenants or their guests. A Housing First tenant ended his life aer MidPen raised his rent shortly aer he lost his job, his girlfriend dumped him, and his dog died. Another one of their tenants (he might have been a former foster youth) OD’d and died at a party here aer some other tenants talked him into trying a drug he wasn’t accustomed to using. When he passed out, his “friends” all abandoned him without calling 911.
Instead of helping Housing First tenants get detox services, Abode Services protects them from evicon for selling drugs in the building to support their habits, or from evicon for meth-related aggression. We have a constant parade of people looking to buy drugs. Besides harassing residents trying to go home in peace, they also vandalize the building, urinate in the stairwells, create disturbances, smoke in the stairwells, steal laundry, and break into apartments. When I return home on foot, I have to block unwanted visitors from tailgang behind me or grabbing the door — and I will get a lease violaon if they succeed. Yet the tenants who sell drugs to them, or invite them over to “party,” are protected from consequences. Abode demands that MidPen retain their tenants to keep up their KPI of “retenon in housing.”
Donner Los lives up to all the negave stereotypes of affordable housing in a neighborhood and Abode Services is a big part of that. This mismanaged building is fueling NIMBY arguments about affordable housing. We have 10–20 Housing First tenants out of 100 tenant units, but their drug sales and errac behavior completely change the character of the building. (Five of them live on my floor and used to have floang trap house acvity at their apartments.) The rest of the tenants reject them for this behavior, so we don’t have a unified community. There are always people hanging around outside and causing problems.
The Federal rules for Housing First state clearly that tenants in the program not only benefit from the same rights as other tenants, they have the same responsibilies so that the community will funcon harmoniously. Because Abode focuses on opmizing their housing retenon stats, their tenants in MidPen Housing properes are not held to the same standards as tenants who aren’t “in a program.” Other tenants are red of pung up with the constant nuisances and geng lease violaons for trivia. Most of the “workforce housing” tenants who leave Donner Los aer their lease is up are displaced from San Jose because they find comparable rent in Morgan Hill, Gilroy, Portland, etc. This would seem to violate the spirit of the City’s An-Displacement campaign.
Also, I hope Abode Services is paying for the restoraon and reconstrucon from the fires and floods their tenants have been causing. I don’t need to pay higher rent because someone broke a fire sprinkler while they were high and flooded mulple apartments. I also suspect they are the ones who keep tampering with the smoke detectors and causing false alarms. I’m red of having to evacuate for a false fire alarm at least once a week, somemes in the middle of the night.
I have heard on social media that Abode failed to pay their share of rent on behalf of some of their tenants at other buildings. The tenants couldn’t cover the whole rent payment and were evicted. It seems like paying their share of the rent is the very minimum bar for supports.
hps://nextdoor.com/p/4C7H7C79RKsf?utm source=share&extras=MTY4NjIyMzg%3D
Please invesgate the details of Abode Services’ actual performance, not just the KPIs. I know our Housing Department is busy with a lot of very good work, but perhaps a County Civil Grand Jury could look into their performance.
Kind regards, San Jose, CA 95112
This message is from outside the City email system.
https://sanjose.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=F&ID=11667081&GUID=CEA672F7-3AA3-4A3A-A818-C9ACB7DED573
