Will San Jose take a harder stance on homeless encampments?

Kicking off a contentious debate early in his tenure, San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan is pushing for a stricter approach to homeless encampments that have cropped up below the city’s underpasses and along its rivers, describing them as a public safety and environmental hazard for all residents.

The mayor’s proposal, still in the early stages, would push for 1,000 interim housing units to be built by the end of the year to combat the city’s homelessness crisis while simultaneously establishing a pilot program to prevent the expansion of encampments that pose heightened safety risks and require the greatest share of city resources.

He claims the strategy will make a serious dent in sheltering the 5,000 San Jose residents who sleep on the streets every night, contending that once an unhoused resident receives shelter through the city, an encampment should no longer be an option. The plans include the hiring of mental health workers and law enforcement to prevent expansion of the tent cities.

“I believe individuals have a responsibility for coming indoors — at a minimum — when safe places are provided,” Mahan said at a press conference on Tuesday, flanked by nearly two dozen community supporters. “And as we increase the number of safe places, I suspect that most of the people living outside will take advantage of that.”

Ultimately, if these initial plans show progress, the mayor said San Jose could declare no-encampment zones in key commercial districts, including downtown. The policy is a significant departure from Mahan’s predecessor, Mayor Sam Liccardo, who oversaw the clearing of encampments in certain areas such as schools but did not seek a wider ban on encampments in these parts of the city.

But in championing his hard stance, the mayor is already facing opposition from the City Council and unhoused advocates.

Councilmember David Cohen, who represents the northern and eastern parts of the city, described the idea as “premature” in an interview on Monday.

“I don’t think we’re at the point yet with services in the city to enforce no-encampment zones,” Cohen said. “We’re not at that stage yet where we can offer people enough spaces in interim housing and other locations that will allow us to be able to make enough of a dent to create those encampment-free zones.”

The policy announced Tuesday was part of a larger set of priorities presented this month by the mayor and set to be debated among councilmembers before a final budget is voted on in June. The mayor ran on a platform focused on narrowing the city’s priorities — calling for homelessness, crime and blight to be addressed before resources are put elsewhere. The city is anticipating a $30 million budget surplus, according to a recent estimate by the city manager’s office, though that additional cash flow could slow to a trickle in the years ahead as the financial forecast darkens.

During Tuesday’s press conference, the mayor pointed to similar actions taken against encampments in the city. In 2021, the Federal Air Aviation Administration ordered the city to shutter one of the largest encampments in the Bay Area near Mineta San Jose International Airport or risk losing out on crucial federal funding. Outside of San Jose, cities such as Milpitas and San Rafael have enacted similar policies to Mahan’s proposal. In Oakland, residents have filed a lawsuit against the city, claiming it isn’t doing enough to enforce the ban against encampments.

Mahan is also pushing for a one-time doubling of funds from Measure E — legislation passed by voters in 2020 to raise money for housing low-income and unhoused residents — to fund homelessness prevention efforts that include rental assistance and eviction diversion.

While Cohen said he supports the effort to get the 1,000 interim housing sites up and running by the end of the year, he called it only “one part of the solution.” He would rather see even more attention on prevention efforts — such as legal services to prevent more evictions — saying the encampment proposal “isn’t going to solve the problem.”

“There has to be more prevention,” Cohen said. “Those are important things that will move the needle.”

In addition to pushback from colleagues, the mayor also will have to navigate a set of legal rulings that could potentially topple his encampment plan, including Martin v. Boise. The 2018 legal decision by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals determined that cities cannot penalize homeless residents if they’re not offered another option.

Homeless advocates include San Jose’s Gail Osmer, who opposes the mayor’s plans for no-encampment zones and is skeptical that the 1,000 units will be built by the end of the year.

“It’s March. You think they’re going to create 1,000 units for people?” asked Osmer, who has been working with the city’s homeless for 30 years and regularly visits its encampments. “I think sometimes the city doesn’t reach out to the right people to know what is really going on.”

Others, however, such as Evergreen School District Board Member Mary Pollett, said her past experiences overseeing San Jose’s schools have convinced her that a harder stance on encampments is necessary.

Pollett said that Yerba Buena High School has experienced difficulties with an encampment located in its backyard along Coyote Creek. During the height of the pandemic, she said there were 20 different incidents involving homeless residents coming onto the school’s campus, with some breaking in and sleeping on the site.

“I support the mayor’s message that in order for him to enforce the no-encampment zone, (housing) has to be in place,” she said in an interview Tuesday. “You can’t just say no to something and not give another alternative.”