SAN JOSÉ: WHEN INFRASTRUCTURE MEETS THE VULNERABLE NEIGHBOR [The Coyote Creek and Guadalupe River Corridors, Encampment Clearances, and the Unfinished Responsibility of Human Protection] ___On Urban Development, Environmental Stewardship, Public Authority, and the Gospel of Proximity

I. The City of Innovation and the Neighbor Without a Home

San José stands at the heart of Silicon Valley, one of the world's most celebrated centers of technological innovation.

Here, extraordinary intelligence is devoted to designing machines, developing artificial intelligence, expanding transportation networks, and creating new forms of economic wealth.

Yet along the city's waterways, beneath its freeway interchanges, and beside its industrial corridors, another reality remains visible.

Human beings continue to seek shelter in places
never designed for habitation.

Along Coyote Creek and the Guadalupe River, tents and improvised dwellings have occupied portions of the landscape. These waterways, essential to the city's environmental health, have also become places of refuge for people excluded from secure housing.

The contradiction is profound.

The city has developed extraordinary systems for moving information, capital, and vehicles. But it continues to struggle with the fundamental responsibility of providing places where vulnerable people can safely remain.

This is not merely an engineering problem.

It is a question of public priorities, human dignity,
and the purpose of civilization.

When infrastructure meets the vulnerable neighbor,
what should happen?

Should the neighbor simply be moved?

Or should the encounter become an opportunity
to restore the conditions necessary for human life?

Pastor Steven G. Lee
St. GMC Corps
November 4, 2026

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