Santa Clara County has launched a pilot program stationing mental health and medical teams directly at two San José tiny-home villages—Rue Ferrari and Bernal—to connect unhoused residents with behavioral health services. According to the initiative, the effort has already connected or referred about 40 residents to services, with plans to expand to other tiny-home locations later this year.
On-Site Care Model
Community health workers and medical staff are stationed at the villages to refer residents to behavioral health services and coach shelter staff on connecting people to care. Workers concentrate on linking residents to ongoing treatment and stabilization services that support transitions into permanent housing rather than returns to the street.
The timing aligns with San José’s rapid shelter expansion. The city has opened multiple tiny-home villages, converted motels, and safe-parking sites over the last year, adding more than 1,300 beds and pushing interim housing capacity close to 2,000 placements. Recent projects such as the Cerone Interim Housing Community create permanent interim locations where treatment teams can be effectively stationed.
Broader Investment and Capacity Building
County Executive James Williams reported that the county plans to spend nearly $470 million on homeless solutions in the current fiscal year. The county invests about $45 million annually to operate 20 shelter and safe-parking sites providing more than 2,000 beds or parking spaces. Additionally, the county is taking on operating costs for two additional shelters being transferred from the city this year.
The county has also been expanding behavioral health capacity, opening residential treatment facilities and adding hundreds of new treatment beds as part of a multi-year plan to reach several hundred additional beds by 2030. Recent projects including Vermont House and a new behavioral health services center at Valley Medical Center are designed to create stepped-care options and strengthen pipelines linking people leaving jail or prison to treatment services.
Budget and Staffing Challenges
Despite these initiatives, the Behavioral Health Services Department faces significant budget strain. The department is facing an estimated $100 million shortfall in the next fiscal year, according to county supervisors. Shifting federal and state funding combined with workforce shortages may force difficult decisions about which services expand and which remain on hold.
Officials say they will closely track the shelter pilot to measure outcomes and scale effective approaches, while moving ahead with plans to extend services to other tiny-home sites.
This article is an AI-assisted summary. All facts and figures are drawn from the original report: https://hoodline.com/2026/02/county-care-teams-hit-san-jose-tiny-home-shelters-in-mental-health-push/