While nearby residents have raised concerns, future mental health inpatient facilities have been set up to treat dozens of teens and adults in San Jose’s Willow Glen area.
The San Jose Planning Committee unanimously approved a plan to convert an existing office building at 913 Willow St. into a 48-bed mental health inpatient facility. The project does not require city council approval. While planning committee members supported the project, some neighbors raised safety concerns about how the facilities manage security.
Nearby resident Brian Maldonado said the planning commission’s parking and public safety would be adversely affected.
“The developers said this was aimed at mild pathological patients,” he said at the meeting. “But I’ve been working in health care for 20 years. Inpatient services are not mild pathology. They are because of very serious pathology. I’ve been living on the streets since 2011 and the streets are full of children.
Eugene Tillman, executive director of LGTC Group, said patients are only able to enter and exit the shuttle service and have security systems in place to monitor the facility.
“There’s a lot of parking and other amenities available to employees in the organization. This is going to have a patient ratio of 1-3,” he said. “These facilities are owned by our group, so there is no interference or negative impact on the neighborhood.”
LGTC Grouppreviously known as the Los Gatos Therapy Center, headquartered in San Jose, operates clinics in San Jose, Sunnyvale and Campbell. Willow Glenn’s residential facility will be the fifth location in South Bay. The 24-hour residential facility will be closed to the public and will provide psychiatric and medical monitoring and psychotherapy interventions.
Planning Commissioner Justin Lardinoy said at the meeting that if residents allowed such facilities to be blocked from their neighborhoods, there would be little or no sites for mental health treatment.
“I fully understand where you came from, why you might feel worried, and why facilities like this might sound scary,” he said. “There are multiple instances of such a facility that exists in the neighborhood, but in reality, a lot of people are quiet and closed so I don’t think they realize they’re there.”
A few months before LGTC applied for a similar office-to-facility conversion project at 738 N. First St. City planning authorities approved the project in 2023 with the same number of beds. The site is still under development and will be its sixth online site.
That same year, Good Samaritan Hospital closed 18 bed locations at Mission Oaks Hospital, reducing mental health acute care beds for inpatients in Santa Clara County by 8%.
Mental health care and treatment have become a controversial point between city officials and county leaders in collective efforts to reduce homelessness.
County officials I said Last year, they hope to double the mental health and substance use treatment beds to 530 by 2030. According to the county, an increase in treatment beds could double substance use treatments to 20,000 by 2030.
Mayor Matt Mahan said earlier this month that San Jose spotlight will encourage more individuals to accept shelter as more behavioral and mental health treatment options for homeless residents.
“There is no intention to criminalize it,” he said. “But we have to take this person into care of the county and make sure the county knows who they are and that they are responsible for making that person indoors in some way.”
Anthony Trudiros, chairman of the Planning Committee, running for a seat on the 3rd District Council, said he was pleased to have the group invested in San Jose after he voted in favor of both LGTC developments at the meeting.
“We are delighted that this facility will move forward because it truly provides life-saving care,” he said.
