SAN JOSE — Santa Clara County officials on Sunday showed how they were converting part of the fairgrounds to accommodate homeless people attempting to find shelter during the coronavirus pandemic.
An exhibit hall in the fairgrounds is expected to house about 80 homeless individuals who are currently in the county’s shelters, in an effort to ease overcrowding there and comply with social distancing orders amid the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak.
Santa Clara County Board President Cindy Chavez said during a tour of the fairgrounds facilities that the goal of the effort is to keep the virus from spreading among the homeless population by spacing out the population among different shelters and facilities across the county.
“We want to make sure (coronavirus) doesn’t run rampant” in the homeless community, Chavez said. “We’re really doing two things: We’re alleviating the shelter population, (and providing) services for people who are homeless. Our goal is to expose as few people as possible to the virus.”
Along with the Gateway Hall exposition facility being used to house homeless during the outbreak, the county is also setting up a base of operations at Fiesta Hall, which could be used for overflow purposes if shelters around the county remain crowded.
The new shelter at the fairgrounds — which will be ready to use at early this week — adds to the increasing number of other hotels, motels and other facilities across the county being used to temporarily keep unhoused people off the streets.
But homeless people living in the county’s many encampments and on the street won’t find housing at the fairgrounds, as the facilities are meant to relieve overcrowding at shelters. Chavez said the county is continuing its efforts to reach out to homeless people outside shelters to keep the virus from spreading among them.
“I don’t believe it will be enough,” Chavez said of the new facilities. “We’re looking toward getting other buildings and making a decision on those.”
Chavez also said that the state has sent the county 15 trailers currently being refurbished to be used as isolation chambers for any homeless individuals who are found to have coronavirus.
The trailers will be hooked up to water and sewage service on the fairgrounds, and Abe Andrade said the fairgrounds is working on getting electricity hookups as well. Chavez said the trailers should be ready by the end of the week.
Also at the fairgrounds is a Verily pilot screening site, affiliated with Google’s parent company, Alphabet. Through an online site, the company selects individuals for testing based on risk factors and s who have been prioritized for testing after completing an online screening .
The fairgrounds also houses about 32 people living in RVs on a month-to-month lease. Chavez said the leases have been extended for the duration of the shelter-in-place order.
The order is currently scheduled to end April 7, though she said it’s unlikely it will be lifted then.
“In all likelihood, we’ll have another shelter-in-place order early this week,” Chavez said Sunday.
Once the coronavirus outbreak is over, Chavez said people being housed at the fairgrounds will be connected to housing or asked to go back to the shelters they came from.
As the outbreak brings most business and some construction projects to a halt, Chavez said she’ll be speaking with health officials about the importance of completing housing projects currently in the works.
“If we slow down housing production as soon as this is over we’re right back where we started,” Chavez said.
Despite the difficulties of simultaneously working to stop the spread of coronavirus and continue the county’s business to house people, Chavez said Santa Clara County is well-positioned now and has been more prepared than other places to get through the pandemic.
“There’s no place I’d rather live,” Chavez said.
