A year in, San Jose’s mayor doubts he can hit his homeless housing goals — even with an extension

Coming up on one year as leader of the 12th-largest city in the United States, Matt Mahan says he’s troubled by the slow pace at which San Jose is building shelter for homeless residents leaving encampments, an effort he made a key focus of his campaign for mayor and one that could define his legacy as he sails into re-election without any political opposition in 2024.

The mayor is racing against the clock to meet his goal of getting 1,000 new housing units up and running before June 30 of next year, an objective that was hindered by a battle with other councilmembers during the summer over how homelessness funds were to be allocated and then pushed out six months after city staff said an end-of-year timeline wasn’t feasible.

Since his inauguration, Mahan has gone all in on interim-style solutions, which he argues offer the best opportunity to reduce the unsheltered homeless population in San Jose by offering the right balance of stability for those seeking permanent housing and scalability when compared to permanent options. There’s general support for the strategy among the City Council, though some critics of the solution argue it doesn’t chip away at the problem of housing affordability.

Since the start of the year, the city has added 275 units of tiny home-style shelter, safe vehicle parking, and hotel rooms — along with 207 permanent supportive housing spots, according to the latest figures provided by the mayor’s office. That means San Jose has just six months to build out roughly what it completed in the past year if it’s to meet the mayor’s pledge.

“We need to treat this like a crisis,” Mahan said in an interview on Wednesday. “People are dying on the streets today. We have over 4,000 people who have nowhere else to go just in San Jose. And treating that like a crisis means that we don’t over-engineer and over-design solutions. We don’t take 18 months to stand up a site. (We) don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. I have real concerns and frustration. We’re still overcomplicating things.”

Despite the worries about numbers, certain measures indicate the interim strategy may be having an impact: The most recent count of unsheltered homeless in San Jose in May showed an 11% drop compared to last year.

But the interim sites have a sizeable waitlist — around 400 people are trying to get a spot, according to city officials. The city currently operates about 500 tiny home-style shelters, 200 hotel rooms and 42 safe parking spots. Another four tiny home sites, as well as one expansion — totaling 788 spots — are currently in the pipeline.

More recently, Mahan has tried clipping bureaucratic red tape to speed up the construction of interim housing by no longer requiring certain land-use provisions, building codes and procurement decisions. As an even more immediate solution, he is now suggesting that the city create sanctioned encampments around San Jose.

While the plans are still in the early stages, the mayor said he envisions a site or two with around 100 spots each where homeless residents could put tents on top of wooden pallets paired with security — a plan that he acknowledges will hinge on “political will.” He said he was inspired by San Diego’s recent opening of a sanctioned encampment with 400 spots.

“The bottom line is we need speed and scale,” Mahan said. “We need a lot of placements. And we need them quickly.”

The mayor’s efforts have hit speed bumps this year. In June, he sought to shift funding that had traditionally gone toward permanent housing to his interim strategy but didn’t get as much as he originally pressed for. And when city staff extended out their housing goal, they blamed land access issues, among other roadblocks delaying the effort.

“Those were always really difficult objectives to get accomplished by the end of December,” said Jim Shannon, the city’s budget director, about the homelessness goal. “It was always going to be a huge challenge.”

“The nature of these efforts is that they’re complicated and multifaceted. And they require many partners,” said Deputy City Manager Omar Passons.

There have also been political successes for Mahan, namely the city’s ability to convince concerned workers at a Valley Transportation Authority yard that they should support a nearby outlay of 200 tiny homes provided by Gov. Gavin Newsom. But timing, again, may become a snag after the Sacramento Bee reported in October that the governor’s tiny home plans were delayed.

Questions have also been raised about the cost of the interim shelter strategy. The city is currently spending $36.4 million on its portfolio of interim options — with money coming from one-time general fund allocations, the state and tax dollars from Measure E.

But in just four years, costs to the general fund could reach $70 million, according to the budget director’s preliminary estimates. That’s roughly $15 million more than a projection offered in June.

The mayor argues the costs are worth it, considering the price of human suffering on the streets and the strain placed on emergency services that are routinely called to unmanaged encampments — along with hopes that external funding can be found in the coming years.

The council is also exploring ways to reduce spending on future projects, including a forthcoming safe parking site in the Berryessa neighborhood that elected officials recently expressed skepticism over its nearly $20 million opening costs.