Rise of San Jose homeless encampments arouses concern, cleanups in blighted neighborhoods

In the heart of Silicon Valley, City and County leaders had ceded the Guadalupe River, Coyote Creek and Los Gatos Creek to encampments of the luckless, dispossessed and often mentally ill people. They became filaments of filth, a river of garbage and human waste. Friends of Los Gatos Creek, an all-volunteer group formed a year ago by Steve Holmes, a recreational fisherman, stepped in to attack hot spots once a month and so far has hauled 50 tons of trash from the creek’s banks and bridges.