The success of one other major California city's sleep safety program could function a model for San Jose's approach to establishing approved campgrounds.
San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan said he was encouraged by the impact the low-cost transitional housing alternative was having on alleviating San Diego's homelessness crisis as he toured town's largest protected sleeping facility in Balboa Park last week in quest of solutions to what was working and what wasn't.
“It's pretty incredible when you look at the scale and coordination of services,” Mahan said. “They've moved people into government safe sleeping spaces and the problems have decreased. Yes, it's a transitional place, but it's also a significant improvement in conditions.”
The homelessness crisis has forced San José to reevaluate a few of its priorities because it also struggles with a shortage of reasonably priced housing. According to recent census figures, there are roughly 6,340 homeless people in San José, of whom about 70% are unsheltered.
In this yr's budget, town continued to divert thousands and thousands of Measure E funds from reasonably priced housing to interim solutions, including removing unauthorized homeless encampments. The city also made a historic $27 million investment in revising its stormwater permits to comply with the Clean Water Act, which required the relocation of residents living along and polluting town's waterways to avoid tens of hundreds of dollars in every day fines.
San Jose has previously focused on constructing tiny houses or rapid-build communities, adding tons of of housing units over the past 4 years – a model that has proven successful find everlasting housing for the homeless.
But faced with a necessity to cut back the variety of encampments and a shortage of temporary shelters, town council experimented with protected sleeping spaces and added other alternatives. In June, it approved eight possible sites to accommodate 500 homeless people.
“The fundamental principle is to house people in safe and supportive places,” Mahan said. “I would rather spend the money on that than on remediation and cleanup.”
Like other major cities in California, San Diego is counting on protected sleeping spaces as an economical interim solution and has arrange a complete of 533 tents, 400 of that are near Balboa Park.
These sites, which cost about $56 per tent every day, provide a mixture of vital services resembling meals, showers and restrooms, individual case management, medical care and treatment services to assist homeless residents get back on their feet.
Parts of the protected sleeping spaces are also tiered or terraced to assist homeless individuals who face the identical challenges or illnesses resembling diabetes.
Mahan was also impressed that some homeless people also found work as employees on the San Diego locations.
“Our safe sleeping spaces have proven to be a successful and innovative way to get homeless people off the streets and into services,” San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria said in an announcement. “It was an honor to show Mayor Mahan how these accessible spaces work in San Diego, and I hope they continue to serve as a model for effective solutions to help at-risk residents find stability and a path to permanent housing.”
Before the City Council passed this yr's budget, using Measure E funds for temporary housing solutions somewhat than reasonably priced housing was controversial, with opponents questioning whether it was a long-term solution.
The Bay Area Housing Finance Authority withdrew its $20 billion reasonably priced housing bond from the November ballot on the last minute, dealing an excellent greater blow to future projects since the timing didn’t give local officials enough time to propose alternatives.
But Mahan remained stubborn and said that Measure E funds would go where they made essentially the most sense.
While Mahan supported the housing bond, he said town could also address the affordability crisis by flattening the development cost curve, which has exploded in recent times as labor and material costs soared. A city report last yr found that the fee of constructing a single reasonably priced housing unit had increased 24%, to about $938,700.
Mahan said town has focused on other tools at its disposal to spur development, including reducing taxes and charges and making it easier to construct accessory dwelling units (ADUs), which currently account for a few quarter of all housing construction.
He added that town must treat the issue of homelessness “as the emergency that it is.”
“As we stabilize and support the situation of our most vulnerable citizens, it will be important to talk about rebalancing,” Mahan said, “but we must face the crisis before us today with pragmatic solutions.”
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