San José Mayor Matt Mahan and Santa Clara County officials continue to spar over his controversial proposal to arrest homeless residents who repeatedly turn down shelter as well as its potential impacts to public safety and the criminal justice system.
The City Council will vote on the initiative next month.
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However, Mahan and his allies on the dais have fired back at the county, arguing misdemeanor charges have been used in the past to compel treatment, especially with the city looking to address instances in which drug addiction or mental health issues have led to unhoused residents becoming resisting to accepting services.
“It is not enough to criticize the use of misdemeanor arrests for municipal code violations without offering a realistic alternative for those who continue to refuse help and fall through the cracks of our current system,” Mahan said. “If the County has a plan for reaching the hardest-to-help, we would welcome the opportunity to learn more about that plan through a joint meeting between the San José City Council and the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors.”
Adding to Mahan’s comments, District 10 Councilmember George Casey blasted the county for “its actions or inactions” in response to the homelessness crisis, which he said should not dictate city policy.
“We have a feckless county that has been derelict in its duty,” Casey said. “The notion that we are going to sit here and set policy based on their lack of will to do what the people want is ridiculous. Most people don’t know who their county supervisor is or what the county is responsible for and we’re the ones who catch hell.”
Santa Clara County officials did not respond to a request for comment by publication.
The war of words this week continued a debate between city and county officials over the effectiveness of Mahan’s policy proposal, which could allow the city to arrest an unhoused person for trespassing if they refuse available shelter three or more times over 18 months.
As San Jose has invested heavily in increasing its shelter capacity, Mahan said it came with the expectation that unhoused residents need to be held accountable for using the resources. But despite the city’s aggressiveness in adding more than 1,400 shelter placements this year, it still does not have enough beds for the 5,500 estimated residents who are homeless.
In acknowledging that nonviolent misdemeanors do not result in incarceration, Mahan said the goal was to petition behavioral health courts to mandate treatment if someone has underlying mental health issues or is in the throes of addiction that impacts their ability to leave the streets.
As part of its strategy, the city has proposed creating a new police unit – staffed with one sergeant and six officers – that would be tasked with enforcing this policy when outreach efforts have completely failed. Officers also will patrol for quality of life offenses.
San José is redirecting police resources to staff the new unit, with a projected budget of $2.1 million next year, prompting county leaders to question whether Mahan’s policy will have its intended effect. The county also has raised concerns about the unintended consequences for public safety departments.
Mahan responded that the homelessness crisis has resulted in the police and fire department responding to tens of thousands of calls last year alone.
“Our police and fire departments respond daily to encampment fires, behavioral health crises, and violent incidents on our streets,” Mahan wrote in his letter. “The absence of enforcement doesn’t conserve resources – it consumes them … That’s why our Police and Fire unions representing nearly two thousand first responders strongly endorse our proposal to require that people choose shelter or treatment.”
Mahan also criticized the county for denying the city’s request to embed a trained behavioral health professional in the 911 dispatch center to help with diverting mental health calls to non-police alternatives.
With homelessness the top concern on residents’ minds, this is not the first combative exchange between Mahan and county officials on solutions to ending unsheltered homelessness.
For example, Mahan had sponsored a bill, which was later gutted, that called for large counties to cover at least half of their cities’ shelter and interim housing operating costs.
While Mahan and county officials have argued the merits of his arrest proposal over the past two months, he could also face stiff resistance from some members of the City Council, who have questioned why he wanted to move forward with the initiative without engaging in a more robust conversation with county officials first.
“To say the county is unwilling or doesn’t want to or refuses to step up, I think, is a false narrative,” District 8 Councilmember Domingo Candelas said. “I don’t think that’s right and I think we should have an opportunity as a council to be able to discuss this with the county with them in the room prior to doing a policy that’s supposed to be effectuated by them.”
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