Letter: Homelessness a key issue

Homelessness a key issue in Gilroy election

Early on and after the 2020 election, Gilroy City Council Woman Rebeca Armendariz strongly urged that Gilroy use Christmas Hill Park, and other Gilroy parks, for housing the homeless, in essence creating massive tent cities across Gilroy. 

At the time, the homeless were using our highway underpasses, creeks and other locations to randomly set up their tent cities. All of this was with the full support of Councilman Zach Hilton.

You might ask why I bring this up, and the reason is mayoral candidate Greg Bozzo has intrinsically linked his campaign with both Zach Hilton and Rebeca Armendariz—including both of their agenda’s.

So, if you want our City of Gilroy to become a massive homeless encampment (like in San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley and Santa Cruz), then you know who to vote for: Greg Bozzo. Personally I’m supporting and voting to reelect Mayor Marie Blankley to keep Gilroy’s homeless problem from getting worse……and……to prioritize reversing the homeless growth trend.

Because of the Ninth Circuit 2019 Idaho Ruling and its constraints, in 2019 the number of Gilroy’s homeless tallied 704 and two years later the number of homeless increased to 814 (an increase of 16%). Today the number is 1,048 (an increase of 29% for 2022-23 and a total increase of 49% for 2019 to 2023). 

In addition, when comparing Gilroy’s homeless population to other cities across Santa Clara County, California and the nation, Gilroy has a 1.8% per capita-in-homeless parlance; that is 18 per 1,000. The worst cities in America are about 8 per 1,000!

We don’t need to elect a mayor for our city who will harness his efforts with Armendariz and Hilton that will potentially make our homeless problem even worse.

What is needed is for our elected leaders and administration to combine their efforts and take the measures necessary to reverse the increasing homeless trend, instead of intentionally allowing it to continue to increase. History tells us that with Hilton and Armendariz, and now the potential addition of mayoral candidate Greg Bozzo, the homeless problem will only continue to get worse! As the phrase goes, “Oxen who plow the field together are equally yoked.” 

Mayor Blankley is In fact currently working with the council and administration to have plans in place to effectively address and significantly reduce the number of homeless in Gilroy now that the U.S. Supreme Court has recently ruled that cities can refuse to allow the homeless to camp anywhere they want; including urinating and defecating wherever they want; and shouting from the rooftops, even Gavin Newsom is ordering cities to clear out their homeless encampments! 

At the time, and when Gilroy was still constrained by the Ninth Circuit Court “Idaho” ruling, Mayor Blankley already had a strong record of keeping our city’s homeless problem from getting worse, i.e., getting rid of the homeless encampments along our creeks and alongside the Christmas Hill Park foothills, and now she is working with the council and administration to prepare guidelines for our police to begin the process of significantly reducing our homeless population.  

FYI, both Armendariz and Hilton were defiantly against (and loudly voted “nay”) the ordinance to clear out the homeless encampments from our creeks and hillsides, despite the growing number of dangerous fires that the homeless encampments were causing. 

So, I humbly and respectfully ask mayoral candidate Greg Bozzo, “Does he have a homeless agenda and if so then what are the specifics of his plan to significantly reduce the problem”?

Ron Kirkish

Gilroy