San Jose mayor says legislators ‘talking out of both sides of their mouths’ for demanding progress while cutting homelessness funding ...Middle East

Mayors from the Bay Area’s three largest cities have united to demand that California legislators restore critical homelessness funding that could be stripped from next year’s budget, raising the alarm that the loss of these funds would set back progress on residents’ biggest concern and potentially lead to more draconian policies throughout the state in the future.

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In his initial budget proposal, Gov. Gavin Newsom removed funding for the Homeless Housing, Assistance and Prevention (HHAP) program — which previously received $1 billion per year — and stated he was “not interested in funding failure anymore.” A proposal released by state legislators this week also zeroed out funding next year, but left open the possibility of funding $500 million in the 2026-2027 budget.

With the potential loss of funding next year despite calls to make progress on the homelessness crisis, San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan has accused state legislators of “talking out of both sides of their mouths,” arguing that the budget decision would exacerbate the situation.

“What I find ironic and disappointing is that we’ve been hearing messages from Sacramento lately, particularly from the governor, that they don’t want to fund failure and they want to see more accountability,” Mahan said in an interview with Bay Area News Group. “I could not agree more with those sentiments, but they should not disinvest in what’s working. This is a program that demonstrably moves the needle on homelessness.”

Established in 2019, HHAP provides funding for homelessness programs and housing to cities, counties, and Continuums of Care (CoC), which are regional groups supporting nonprofits that provide homeless resources. While the state has provided $1 billion per year since its inception, it amounts to less than one-half of 1% of the state’s general fund. Cities have received about one-third of those funds.

Through the first four rounds of funding, leaders from the state’s 13 largest cities have touted the positive impacts, including the addition of 17,691 shelter beds and 2,295 permanent supportive housing units, as well as serving 152,433 people.

Even with the latest budget proposal, the Big Cities Mayors — a coalition of mayors from California’s 13 largest cities — estimated that a reduction in HHAP would eliminate 3,250 shelter beds, reduce services for 12,500 people, and halt the construction of 2,250 housing units currently in the pipeline.

Between San Jose, Oakland and San Francisco, city officials estimated that HHAP funding kept approximately 2,500 people each from becoming homeless.

“If the state wants to call homelessness a crisis, they need to treat it like one,” a joint statement from Mahan, San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie and Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee read. “Cities like ours have been asked to lead — and we are. But here’s the truth: we cannot solve a statewide crisis if the state won’t show up.”

Although Mahan acknowledged the frustration from state legislators about the level of progress made in addressing the homelessness crisis, he said he was confident that the state’s largest cities have utilized the program funds effectively, noting that San Jose can specifically point to where all of its funds have been allocated and their impacts.

Mahan argued that if the state was serious about accountability, it would not penalize jurisdictions that were making progress but instead create a framework that has cities, counties and CoCs competing to demonstrate they can use the dollars for the most impact.

For example, last year, the state awarded San Jose an additional source of funding to build its Cherry Avenue interim site following delays in San Diego’s approval of a new housing location.

Mahan said that over the past three years, unsheltered homelessness has declined by 14% based on the last two point-in-time counts.

While San Jose has seen more than 40% of people in its shelter systemwide graduate to permanent housing, its Evans Lane facility, which HHAP funded, has seen 77% of users exit to permanent housing and another 16% move on to another type of housing solution, with an average length of stay of around 206 days. That facility has only seen 4% of users return to homelessness.

Along with reducing unsheltered homelessness, these communities also have addressed public safety and quality of life issues around interim housing sites, indicating that the funds have yielded a high return on investment.

“We know for a fact that leaving someone in unsheltered homelessness has public sector impacts on the order of $50,000 to $100,000 per year,” Mahan said.

Mahan said that San Jose’s allotment of HHAP has amounted to roughly $30 million annually, meaning it is equivalent to helping 1,000 people relocate to interim housing.

At a press conference last week, Lurie noted that San Francisco has seen a 62% decrease in encampments and would stand to lose 1,000 shelter beds without funding.

Although Mahan said San Jose was in a better position to absorb impacts because the city’s budget office did not make current interim housing contingent on HHAP funding and the City Council’s approved more flexible use of Measure E allocations this week, the state’s decision could effectively halt San Jose’s momentum in reducing unsheltered homelessness.

“We thankfully won’t need to close any interim housing sites, but we need to assess whether we can build out the rest of the system if the state is going to zero out its commitment to flexible funding for homelessness solutions,” Mahan said.

While San Jose has attempted to adopt a more compassionate approach to homelessness by building interim housing rather than calling for an outright camping ban, Mahan warned that a cut in funding could lead to frustrations escalating as the crisis worsens and more politicians taking a hardline approach to clear the streets because they don’t have the resources to implement meaningful solutions.

“If the state pulls back and makes it harder for cities and counties to create those interim solutions more scalable as an alternative to the streets, and we have more people in encampments indefinitely, we are going to see a political revolt that will lead to a different set of solutions that are costly and in terms of human well-being,” Mahan said. “I fear that we will see a movement to simply criminalize homelessness if those of us who want to help homeless people can’t be effective.”

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