Mayor Matt Mahan’s initiative aimed at arresting homeless residents who refuse shelter was at the top of the city’s budget hearing Monday as he highlighted Santa Clara County’s lack of enthusiasm.
Police, fire and housing department officials told the San Jose City Council public safety continues to be understaffed as they dedicate more resources toward city policies that penalize homeless residents, not just Mahan’s “responsibility to shelter” plan, but also sidewalk, waterway and “no return zone” encampment bans. Councilmembers who voted against Mahan’s budget plan in March continued to criticize his initiative — citing a lack of impactful data and resources as the city faces a multimillion-dollar budget deficit. Councilmembers didn’t discuss what Mahan’s plan would cost the city to implement.
The mayor bolstered his argument for his plan — which would see homeless people cited or arrested for refusing three offers of shelter within an 18-month period and could create a new police unit to handle it — by highlighting recent violent incidents allegedly caused by homeless residents.
“We continue to have 30% of people, who were identified through 90 days of outreach before the (Branham Lane) site, who have not moved into the site,” Mahan said at the meeting. “I actually think the repeated refusal of shelter is the exact signal we should focus on for intervention, because it is one of the best signs we have that someone has a severe, serious behavioral health issue.”
District 2 Councilmember Pamela Campos accused Mahan of misrepresenting the number of homeless residents turning down shelter, saying he isn’t taking into consideration residents turning down shelter because they found other opportunities.
“In this 30% you’re talking about, this includes people who were not found, people who moved to other shelter. And so the 30% figure is not people saying no to shelter,” Campos said. “When something is happening in my district, I’d like to have the correct data and information to share.”
Mahan posits the city will need the county’s support for his plan to work. City Manager Jennifer Maguire said she reached out to Santa Clara County Executive James Williams to ask if they could embed clinicians from the county’s Behavioral Health Services Department in the city’s 911 center, and they received a response April 30.
“However, despite the openness for the meeting, I am not optimistic that the county will ultimately grant our request,” Maguire said. “They also requested to discuss other opportunities to improve our collective emergency response system, such as how we implement statewide protocols for 911 to 988.”
County officials have discounted Mahan’s attempts to enforce his responsibility to shelter policy, going as far as to say county jails will not hold homeless residents charged under the initiative.
Poncho Guevara, executive director of Sacred Heart Community Services, said citing and arresting homeless residents for refusing housing is a waste of time and money that could be spent building enough housing for everyone on the street, which has yet to happen. Members of the nonprofit protested outside City Hall amid the discussion of Mahan’s policy to arrest homeless people, which some view as criminalizing homelessness.
“What they’re talking about is trying to shuffle people away and get them involved in a criminal justice system,” Guevara told San José Spotlight. “They may be saying that they don’t want to lock anyone up, but you’re going to waste hundreds of thousands of dollars and make it harder for people to get jobs and housing in the first place.”
Echoing Campos and District 5 Councilmember Peter Ortiz, District 4 Councilmember David Cohen said he’s not in favor of Mahan’s policy if it won’t be different from the city’s existing ones.
Police Chief Paul Joseph conceded that homeless residents arrested under the policy will likely lead to a quick release — but he said the ultimate goal is to get people connected to services.
Cohen spoke to housing advocates in the audience when he said he would like for advocates to stop advising homeless residents that they should turn down city services, as the city has a flexible variety of options and programs.
“Adding more (policies) that are hard to enforce, I’m not convinced that does anything more than being performative,” Cohen said. “What we seem to be focused on is a very limited set of areas around the city we’ve called ‘no encampment zones, (which) we’ve done to placate folks who live near interim housing sites because they’re frustrated there’s still homelessness in their community.”
Contact Vicente Vera at [email protected] or follow @VicenteJVera on X.
