SAN JOSE–Soon after yoga instructor Sima Mehrbod threw her mat on the lawn at St. James Park, she invited some of the homeless people who linger there to join. She didn’t get any takers, even after offering them a free yoga mat. But she hasn’t given up.

“It’s how you approach them,” said the petite yogi with dangling, golden earrings. “I hope for one or two to join us eventually. They are all really nice people. After class they’ve come up to me and shared their stories as to how they ended up that way.”

Her drop-in yoga classes are part of the latest of many plans to revive the troubled park in the heart of downtown. But this one is different. Nobody involved in the Summer in St. James Park project has talked about reclaiming the gloriously green space from the dozens of homeless people, drunks, addicts and the mentally challenged who linger there from dawn to dusk seven days a week. It’s now about “activating” the park and sharing it with the homeless regulars.

“A lot of people think it’s a ploy to get rid of the homeless,” said Jack Conway, a local resident and guitar player in a jazz band that performed at the park for a modest crowd one day last week. “I don’t see it that way. The park should be shared space for everyone.”

Compared with the expensive redevelopment schemes and big music festivals of past decades, the idea this time was to offer modest, mostly free activities like yoga and picnic-style events every day. But the biggest difference has to do with attitude, an acceptance of the fact that the homeless are likely there to stay. Ray Reynaga, 53, had been watching the Summer in St. James project with some curiosity.

“This has been a homeless camp for years and it’s going to stay one,” Reynaga said. Asked if the homeless and local residents and downtown workers could actually share the park in harmony, he said, “I don’t see why not. What’s the problem?”

Justine Benjamin, a public relations employee for a downtown business who came out to the park for the yoga class, said she grew up nearby and doesn’t object to sharing it with the homeless, an attitude echoed by other park visitors.

“For me, the homeless are familiar faces,” Benjamin said. “Where else are they going to go? Will there be normalcy there? We need to care for them here and make it possible for everyone to come to the park at the same time.”

According to Ray Bramson, San Jose’s homelessness response manager, the city has about 5,000 homeless people. On any given night, about 110 sleep on the streets in the downtown core, which includes St. James Park.

“Every big city with a central open space has this problem,” Bramson said. “St. James is a beautiful site. It has a lot of space and there wasn’t much activity going on. It’s shady and green. It’s where the homeless found a place to rest and relax.”

Designed by famed landscape architect Frederick Law Olmstead, St. James Park hosted the best and worst of San Jose history in the 19th and 20th centuries. Tiburcio Vasquez, a Mexican-American bandit to some and freedom fighter to others, was condemned and hanged in the courthouse across the street in 1875. The park hosted an infamous lynching in 1933 as well as a stirring speech by presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy just before his assassination in 1968.

Decades of urban decline and neglect followed. So did schemes to reclaim the park. A 1985 St. James Park Master Plan spent millions to beautify the historic site, but the homeless regulars stayed. Since then, an ambitious 28-block redevelopment plan spruced up the neighborhood school, added a sparkling new City Hall, parking garages, main library and dozens of luxury condominiums. The park itself gained a children’s playground that cost nearly $1 million but came with zero-tolerance policies for drug-related crimes in proximity to children.

Still, the homeless stayed. More recent attempts to reclaim the park have included concerts that drew large crowds on weekends and smovie showings that drew smaller groups midweek. Nothing seemed to lure the crowds back for a weekday lunch or a lazy and warm weekend morning, at least not in the numbers hoped for.

Brian Clampitt, who heads the Summer in St. James Park project, said the thinking at City Hall and among local groups is changing from reconquering the park to sharing it with the homeless.

“The strategy is not to drive them out,” Clampitt said as he set up bright green and orange umbrellas, tables and chairs one day last week. “Now it’s to bring more people to the park and not to drive out anyone.”

A committee made up of area residents, businessmen, advocates for the homeless and city officials brainstormed and came up with the strategy of offering something at the park every weekday to attract local residents and downtown workers to the park during the day. Because the city had little or no money for entertainment, the group got a $60,000 grant from the Knight Foundation of Silicon Valley to fund a lineup of modest but steady events: Drop-in yoga and a fruit stand three days a week; gourmet food trucks twice a week; picnic tables every weekday; art lectures on Fridays. Special events included a mobile petting zoo, children’s drumming classes, a hip-hop rally for peace, mellow jazz concert and live broadcasts of a few World Cup soccer matches.

Julie Matsushima and Lisa Josevik showed up early last week to hear a jazz band that played on a flatbed truck parked under some oak trees.

“I just want to support what’s happening here,” said Matsushima, a past San Jose Rotary Club president who lives in a downtown condo. “I want it to be trendy to walk in St. James.”

That’s exactly what homelessness director Bramson has in mind. He said the city and a coalition of church, housing and mental health groups will continue to offer help to the homeless at the park.

Clampitt’s crew will mull over the surveys taken of summertime visitors to see what worked and what didn’t. So far, yoga was popular enough to extend into October. After that, the grant money runs out and the everyday events will be no more for the fall and winter.

Rosemary Baez, the director of the nonprofit Third Street Community Center, helped recruit 40 local schoolchildren for the free drumming sessions. After those classes, the kids flooded the little-used playground until their parents picked them up. Baez hopes the parents will eventually feel comfortable enough to bring their children back when there aren’t any sponsored events at the park.

“It will take a long investment first,” Baez said, “a financial one.”

Larry Siegfried quietly watched the children play from his wheelchair. He suffers from diabetes and other crippling diseases. An alcoholic, he admits he’s one of the hard-to-help homeless who also scares parents and inspires some kids to throw buckeyes at him. Yet, he welcomes the new strategy for everyone to share the park.

“I love San Jose and this park,” the 55-year-old said. “I hope they don’t run me off.”

Contact Joe Rodriguez at 408-920-5767. Follow him at Twitter.com/joerodmercury.