San Jose has unveiled a new mathematical model to end unsheltered homelessness that — while still pricey — could provide a more realistic pathway at a fraction of the cost than previous strategies to achieve the same goal.
With San Jose focusing more heavily on interim solutions, the housing department believes the city could fully build out its shelter system with an initial investment of $255 million that would allow it to achieve “functional zero” — reached when the number of people exiting homeless exceeds the number of people falling into it — before ultimately converting a portion of the units into permanent affordable housing.
“We can get to a place where we have a mature shelter system — something San Jose and frankly the entire West Coast has lacked — and have a bed for every person who would otherwise be on our streets,” Mayor Matt Mahan told The Mercury News. “We will likely never be able to prevent individuals from falling into homelessness, but no one should be condemned to sleeping on a sidewalk or in the creek bed, certainly not for months and even years at a time.”
Mahan said while the previous community homelessness plan had some good insights, it amounted to “wishful thinking” because it placed greater emphasis on affordable housing developments that would have cost around $5 billion to build.
Over the past few years, San Jose has shifted its strategy by increasing its funding for interim solutions to homelessness, such as hotel and motel sheltering, tiny homes, congregate shelters, safe sleeping, and safe parking sites. But even with the unprecedented level of investment, there is still a sizeable gap in meeting the housing needs of the current unsheltered population.
City officials said the current interim solutions have had 5% vacancy over the past 18 months.
By next year, the city’s portion of shelter space will nearly triple and will include the Berryessa safe parking site and interim housing community near Branham Lane and Monterey Road that is set to open soon.
Housing Director Erik Solivan estimated 5,477 unsheltered residents live in San Jose and despite the 1,723 units currently in production between the city and Santa Clara County, it left a shortage of 3,064 units when factoring in that some homeless residents are resistant to entering shelters.
Officials emphasized the model would not eradicate homelessness but instead focused on ensuring that more people are leaving their homeless situation than the number of residents becoming unhoused.
Cupid Alexander, deputy director of housing, said prevention and rapid rehousing were more cost-effective solutions before residents fell into homelessness.
“The longer someone remains unhoused, the more their needs escalate, making their path to stability harder and costlier,” Alexander said.
Under the model unveiled Tuesday, it would also require a sizable annual investment of $234 million for operating costs as long as the system remains at peak capacity.
At a certain point, the city could then compress its shelter system by converting thousands of units into permanent affordable housing. The model estimated that it could cost $575 million to convert 3,378 units into permanent housing, which would also lower the annual operating costs for the shelter system down to $95 million.
The shelter options in the city currently have an annual operating cost in excess of $85 million per year.
Although Mahan said that the city is not financially able to make the model a reality by itself, he believed at the least it provided a target goal that could be achieved with help from public-private partnerships, ballot measures and state and federal funding sources.
“My ask would be that the county either build a commensurate number of shelter beds or fund the operations of the shelter beds we build,” Mahan said. “I think cities with land authority have a good position to build shelter beds, but we need counties in the state of California to fund the case management and supportive services that are traditionally the domain of counties that receive significant passthrough funds from the state and federal government.”
DignityMoves CEO Elizabeth Funk, whose nonprofit has worked with the city on some of its interim housing sites, commended its analysis, noting that quantifying the problem meant that San Jose was halfway to a solution.
She also said that while the investment was significant, the status quo from the homelessness crisis has levied substantial costs throughout numerous departments. Between public safety issues, cleanups and abatements, the homelessness crisis costs San Jose taxpayers at least tens of millions of dollars per year.
“It’s not only humane, it’s fiscally responsible,” Funk said. “I think truly, San Jose is on track to be the first major U.S. city to really solve one of those embarrassing and inhumane problems in our society, and I’m proud of DignityMoves being a little part of it.”
Councilmember Rosemary Kamei expressed concerns that the approach would be cost-prohibitive and did not account for what the city still needs to do to preserve the progress it’s already made.
“I don’t know how we get to a point where we can have safe and managed encampments and have it sustainable, because it is going to be at the sacrifice of services, at the sacrifice of other things, where we could be putting those dollars for the community,” Kamei said.
Mahan acknowledged that San Jose needs to improve its enforcement efforts but said that without adding shelter, the city would not make progress in addressing the homelessness crisis, which was once again residents’ top concern.
For example, San Jose’s new oversized and lived-in vehicle enforcement program has received heavy criticism since it began to clear out stretches of city streets littered with RVs because it has resulted in vehicles dispersing onto side streets or into other neighborhoods due to the lack of places for homeless residents to go.
“People are frustrated because they still see tents and RV encampments that have persisted for years, and they’re looking for an answer to it,” Mahan said. “I think enforcement will help, but unless we invest in some place where people can go, I don’t think we’re going to show the kind of change the community is demanding.”