Roughly 10,000 people live on the streets or in temporary shelters in San José, California. This estimate, based on 2023 point-in-time calculations, sparked ULI members in the San Francisco Bay area to leverage ULI’s Homeless to Housed (H2H) grant initiative to help uncover potential housing solutions for their bayside neighbor.
One potential key to a housing solution could lie in a recently enacted California housing policy (Senate Bill No. 4) that reduces barriers to development of deeply affordable housing on faith-based, nonprofit, and city-owned properties. The application of this bill across the state, and particularly in the city of San José, represents a fundamental shift in how nonprofit and municipally owned land can be used in California’s communities.
ULI San Francisco centered its H2H grant work on underused land owned by places of worship, faith-based organizations, and other nonprofits. With the goal of supporting critical capacity and partnership building to facilitate and promote future affordable housing development, ULI San Francisco engaged SV@Home, Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) Bay Area, and David Baker Architects to jointly develop a program to foster partnerships with social service and agency providers, landowners, and developers.
To engage the broad network of interested and affected constituents and landowners, the consultant team hosted two in-depth workshops and supplemented the process with participant surveys. The workshops started with an overview of current housing approaches and relevant development case studies, then led participants through the entire life cycle of development. The workshops included demonstrations of site analysis, potential building placement, and designs for sample development scenarios. Potential financing scenarios were also applied to each development proposal to deepen participants’ understanding of the complexities at play.
They did not have a class on [housing development] in seminary. It’s a whole new language. I now speak ‘housing’—I’m not fluent, but I’m getting there.
Two potential San José sites were analyzed in depth during the workshops. St. Paul’s United Methodist Church owns a 0.9-acre (0.4 ha) parcel next to San José State University, and Urban Sanctuary and Recovery Café owns a 0.7-acre (0.3 ha) parcel next to San José City Hall.
Each site was evaluated through the lens of redevelopment, including new space for the respective current uses, as well as 60 new residential units, 3,400 square feet (316 sq m) of community or office space, parking for the nonresidential uses, and outdoor community space. Five separate participant teams evaluated the two sites and, although each team delivered unique development scenarios, common themes emerged:
Site-specific strategies are key. The configuration of the buildings on the site and the surrounding adjacencies will affect how pedestrians and vehicles gain access to the site, and any new construction should be integrated into the neighborhood fabric and character and should enhance them.
Parking must be balanced. Although some building occupants may wish for more parking, the opportunities to provide more housing and additional shared outdoor space may be more valuable in the long run.
Maximize housing. The goal of the entire endeavor was to deliver more affordable housing to the market. By using space efficiently and leveraging building materials that can provide additional building height, additional density can be folded into a project, thus providing greater opportunities to house people who are unsheltered today.
Maximize shared spaces. The faith-based uses on these parcels are likely to remain, requiring the new spaces and amenities to functionally and seamlessly integrate with the existing uses. By envisioning certain spaces as shared-use opportunities—namely parking and open space—efficiencies can be gained while still providing needed amenities.
Maintain feasibility. Public sources of funding can be subject to shifting policy agendas, and funding for housing is not guaranteed. By mixing housing deliveries—a blend of permanent supportive housing with housing for transitional-age youth, for example—funding sources are diversified and may prove more resilient over time.
In addition to the themes noted above, the workshops produced a series of actionable recommendations for priority development of underused land in San José. The leadership at St. Paul’s United Methodist Church acted soon after the workshop charette ended, and it is in the process of evaluating the property’s readiness for redevelopment, hiring consultants, and furthering its conversations with San José State University. Similarly, Urban Sanctuary and Recovery Café leadership also embraced the recommendations, and it is exploring opportunities to assemble adjacent parcels into a larger potential project site. Leaders there are currently seeking a developer partner and funding. Urban Sanctuary also went a step further to facilitate ongoing convenings with other faith leaders who are actively exploring new affordable housing development on their respective organizations’ land.
The recommendations, summarized in the report Affordable Housing on Underutilized Lands: A Homeless to Housed Initiative, outline next steps for each participating organization, as well as for other important collaborators in the process, making clear the roles that each must play on the path toward housing the city’s residents. The work also laid the foundation for strong community relationships among San José collaborators who are intensely committed to the city and its people. These new partnerships present a unique opportunity for community leaders to apply their assets, talents, and compassion to provide critical housing to community members in need.
Homelessness transcends locality—it demands a unified effort and resource commitment. The ULI Homeless to Housed program empowered the city of San José to launch a transformative platform for listening and sharing. [By] drawing upon voices from across the Bay Area, it’s evident that we have many ideas ready to mobilize. We are particularly excited about the two faith-based organizations in San José—St. Paul’s United Methodist Church and Urban Sanctuary—that were featured in the charette exercise. Even if this work unleashes barriers and brings just one project to market, it brings us closer to solving the housing and homelessness crisis. This work is not the end but the start of the conversation in the Bay Area.
Throughout the process, H2H participants provided their feedback and insights on how and where these new housing developments might take shape throughout San José. The workshops provided real-life examples of what could be built, how design could help create a new image for sheltered housing in the city, and how these partnerships could have a real-world, positive impact on the community’s unhoused populace.
Editor’s note: ULI San Francisco, along with four other district councils (ULI Louisiana, ULI Philadelphia, ULI San Antonio, and ULI San Diego–Tijuana), received a Homeless to Housed (H2H) local technical assistance grant to explore real estate–driven solutions to homelessness. As a part of ULI’s Terwilliger Center for Housing, H2H works to catalyze the production and preservation of deeply affordable supportive housing to end the U.S. homelessness crisis. The work is made possible with the generous support of Carolyn and Preston Butcher and a growing number of ULI members.
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