Santa Clara County

Project Welcome Home

Abode has been partnering with Santa Clara County on a program that combines permanent supportive housing and community-based clinical services to help the most vulnerable and at-risk members of the South Bay community.

The program is called Project Welcome Home, which was California’s first Pay for Success project.

Project Welcome Home has aimed to rehouse as many as 200 chronically homeless individuals who are frequent users of the county’s emergency rooms, jails, and acute mental health facilities.

"Supportive housing is a powerful model for ending homelessness, and we've seen its tremendous impact on the most vulnerable people in our community — people who are chronically homeless and have been on the street for years," said Louis Chicoine, Abode's chief executive officer. "We hope this program not only changes the lives of participants, but also provides a template for future programs across the country seeking the best way to address chronic homelessness."

Pay for Success is a funding model under which governments pay for services only if and when a service provider achieves clearly defined, measurable results.

Featured Programs

Opportunity Center

For years, the Opportunity Center in Palo Alto has a been a haven for people in need of services or a roof over their head — or both. The housing site in the heart of Silicon Valley has 88 affordable apartments and offers a wide range of services for hundreds of homeless people in the Bay Area’s mid-Peninsula. 

Community Working Group (CWG) developed the Opportunity Center in 2006, in partnership with the Housing Authority of the County of Santa Clara.

The Opportunity Center is located at 33 Encina Ave. in Palo Alto. You can contact the Opportunity Center at 650-853-8672. 

Stabilizing Chronically Homeless Individuals with Project Welcome Home

This video — featuring our Chief Executive Officer Louis Chicoine and others — focuses on Project Welcome Home, which provides housing for chronically homeless individuals in the South Bay. Project Welcome Home is part of a partnership between Abode, Santa Clara County, Palantir, and UC San Francisco.

The Bridge to a Place Called Home

Sal and Elaine Sanchez were homeless for eight years in Silicon Valley after a series of health problems led to a spiral of financial difficulties. This video, produced by Cisco Systems, chronicles the struggles of Sal and Elaine, who are Abode clients, and how they have been able to find and keep housing.

Kifer senior apartments

Kifer Senior Apartments provides 80 units of housing that is affordable to low-income senior households. The six-story building sits on a half-acre property in the city of Santa Clara. It is a combination of 30 studio apartments, 45 one-bedroom units, 4 two-bedroom units, and an on-site manager unit. More than half of the units are reserved for seniors experiencing homelessness and eight apartments are set aside for senior veterans experiencing homelessness.

Residents have access to a community space, rooftop terrace, computer room, secure bike parking for 27 bikes, and 24 vehicle parking spaces. The property is located within walking distance of the Lawrence Caltrain Station for greater connectivity to the broader Bay Area. Abode provides on-site services, including substance abuse support, health and wellness programs and resources, and 84 hours of education and workshops that include vocational employment, financial literacy, and individualized self-sufficiency counseling.

Plaza Hotel

The Plaza Hotel has been converted into a site of interim supportive housing in downtown San Jose. The former hotel was originally built in 1961. It opened in early 2018 after sitting vacant for eight years. Today, it offers 46 units of interim supportive housing for individuals who were homeless on entry but are part of an off-site rehousing program that is preparing an apartment for them.

Abode provides on-site property management and services for residents, helping them to be ready to move directly into their permanent housing once it is available. Services offered there include financial planning, life-skills training, coordination with housing services, connection to community resources, and benefits acquisition. Residents have furnished rooms with a TV, dorm-size refrigerator, microwave, table, chair, and storage. They also have on-site access to a community room, computers, laundry room, and parking in a nearby garage.

Featured Pipeline Project

Parkmoor community apartments and the hub center for tay

In May 2021, the County of Santa Clara Board of Supervisors selected Abode Housing Development (formerly known as Allied Housing) to develop residential housing and a youth service center at 1510-1540 Parkmoor Ave. in San Jose. This new development currently known as Parkmoor Community Apartments and The HUB Center for TAY (Transitional Age Youth) will have up to 81 units of affordable and supportive housing, including units for transition-age youth. These housing units will include studios and one-bedroom, two-bedroom, and three-bedroom apartment homes on a 1.62-acre parcel at the intersection of Parkmoor and Meridian avenues. 

The five-story building will feature four floors of housing above The HUB Center for TAY, a youth-led community center dedicated to supporting current and former foster youth ages 15 to 24. The center will have 17,000 square feet of ground-floor space and will be owned and operated by the County of Santa Clara. The HUB Center for TAY will house service organizations, provide activity spaces for youth, and serve as a safe, welcoming center with services by youth peers and other caring community members. This sustainable, all-electric development will have outdoor surface parking spaces, an enclosed mechanical parking lift, and bike storage. Abode Services will provide on-site supportive services for residents.