San José Mayor Matt Mahan unveiled an initiative Thursday that would ratchet up the pressure on homeless people to accept shelter or face jail time.
“Homelessness can’t be a choice,” Mahan said during a news conference to announce his proposed ordinance. “I’m proposing that after three offers of shelter, we hold people accountable for turning their lives around.”
Mahan’s proposal is the latest escalation in a statewide crackdown on homeless encampments since a pivotal June 28 U.S. Supreme Court decision that gave local officials the authority to ban camping on sidewalks, streets and other public property even if there isn’t shelter available. In the months since, civic leaders across California have launched a variety of punitive tactics aimed at clearing out homeless camps and ushering people into shelter and treatment.
The Bay Area has been particularly responsive to the Supreme Court ruling, with communities across the liberal basin sending the message that the entrenched encampments that in many cases took root amid the shutdowns and service cutbacks of the COVID-19 pandemic will no longer be tolerated. Cities including Berkeley, Oakland and San Francisco have adopted more aggressive enforcement strategies over the last year in an effort to dismantle sprawling tent cities that are often accompanied by public drug use, criminal activity and health hazards.
Fremont, a diverse suburb 40 miles southeast of San Francisco, last month became the latest Bay Area city to pursue the get-tough approach, adopting an ordinance that bans homeless camping on public and private property. A provision that would have also made “aiding and abetting” homeless camps a misdemeanor violation was rolled back this week, amid outcry from nonprofit groups that provide services to homeless people.
Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat who in recent years has tacked right on homelessness, applauded the Supreme Court ruling and in July issued an executive order mandating that California agencies take a more urgent approach to clearing homeless encampments on state property, and pressuring cities to follow suit.
Mahan, a moderate Democrat, split from the state’s Democratic leadership last year, joining several other big city mayors to endorse Proposition 36, a successful November ballot measure that imposed stricter penalties on people convicted of repeat thefts and crimes involving fentanyl. On the issue of homelessness, he has resisted the move toward aggressive sweeps of homeless camps and all-out bans on homeless camping, arguing that without more shelter beds, such restrictions just move the problem to neighboring cities.
Instead, since his election in 2022, Mahan has focused on dramatically increasing the number of short-term shelter beds in his city as a way to address the crisis, rather than waiting until more permanent — and costly — affordable housing options are available. That effort is a deviation from the “housing first” strategy championed by progressive Democrats, which endorses creation of permanent affordable housing with supportive services attached as the most effective way to end homelessness.
Under Mahan’s leadership, San José has invested heavily in interim housing and shelters, with more than 2,000 units now available or in development. Now that the city has shelter to offer, Mahan said, it’s time to hold those living on the streets accountable for coming inside. Roughly a third of the people who have been offered interim housing are refusing those offers, according to the mayor’s office.
Under Mahan’s proposal, which will need approval from the City Council, people who reject offers of shelter would face escalating punishment with each refusal, starting with a written warning and ending with possible arrest.
More than 6,250 people are homeless in San José, according to 2023 estimates, including nearly 4,400 who are living on the streets, in cars or in abandoned buildings not suitable for habitation. Mahan said mental health and addiction issues are often what keep people on the streets and unable to “make a rational decision about their own well-being.”
“That does not mean that we should throw up our hands and give up on them. It means we need to help them break a destructive cycle that is harming themselves and the larger community,” Mahan said.
The proposal is certain to draw opposition from some of the same factions that opposed Mahan’s embrace of interim housing, as well as homeless advocates who reject using incarceration as a tool to solve homelessness.
Jamie Chang, a UC Berkeley School of Social Welfare professor, said her research has shown that short-term shelter options such as those San José has prioritized can be an effective part of a multi-pronged approach to solving homelessness.
“What we need is a range of responses that are going to fit the need of different people’s level of readiness, willingness and ability to be indoors,” Chang said, adding a caveat that those short-term solutions are only effective if accompanied by services and part of a pathway to permanent housing.
While permanent supportive housing is considered the gold standard, Chang said, “unsheltered homelessness is at crisis levels across the Bay Area and across our state. And we certainly also need shorter-term solutions now to rectify and alleviate the pain and suffering that’s occurring on our streets.”
