Cupertino moving forward on affordable housing for people with disabilities

By CBS Bay Area

The Cupertino City Council voted 3-2 in favor of a unique affordable housing project that will also reserve units for those with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD).

“This will be the first time ever in the city of Cupertino that the IDD community are allowed to come and live within city limits,” Hadiyah Fain with nonprofit Life Services Alternatives, told CBS News Bay Area. 

Fain was leading the rally for families with IDD outside of the Cupertino City Hall. 

“Has been 20 years since they’ve tried to get something like this going. And we’ve come into a lot of problems,” she said. “This notice of developmental proposal for Mary Ave., Charities Housing and the Cupertino Rotary have come together, worked very hard with other IDD organizations in order to get this property and this site built up.” 

Fain was referring to a new housing project along Mary Avenue by Highway 85. 

“Cupertino has more space for AI than it does for any person with intellectual and developmental disabilities,” Fain said. 

She is grateful the city is moving forward with the project. There will be 40 affordable housing units, with 19 of them dedicated for families with IDD. 

“We have way more that we need, and yet this is the beginning hopefully of a lot more space,” she said. 

For Fain, the fight is personal, as his baby son was born with IDD. 

“He didn’t make it, and he passed. But I saw the way that I was treated. I saw the way they treated my son, I saw how difficult of a road it was going to be for me just to be his parent.”

Councilmember J.R. Fruen heard from residents for and against the project in a city council meeting in early February. 

“I am disappointed that the vote was 3-2, and not unanimous. It really should have been,” he said. “It was a more civil discussion than what I had frequently seen for high contentious development projects. We are unfortunately known for being somewhat litigious on these topics.”

The project site sits on public land with parking spots. Fruen added that there were questionable legal arguments and neighbor concerns about not enough parking spaces for music festivals. 

“Fundamentally, the question here is whether we want to have nearly 90 spaces for cars to park, housing for cars or 40 homes for extremely deserving families on a permanent basis,” he said. 

“We shouldn’t be pushing their problems into this development,” he added. 

Fain said it was a long way to get to this point, but the fight is not over. 

“I’m fighting for every moment that I would have had with my son, to give one mother, one father, one brother, one sister, just a moment of relief, knowing that their son, daughter, brother, sister, their loved one has a place in this world and belongs,” she said. 

There are a few more formal steps to complete, but officials said they anticipate breaking ground on this housing complex around this time next year.