IF SAN JOSE MAYOR MATT MAHAN becomes California’s next governor, policy experts say some homeless solutions he has implemented in Silicon Valley’s largest city could work — but others may fall flat.
Mahan has scaled up production of tiny homes, more than doubling the number of beds it operates last year to get people off the streets. He’s advocated for more state funding to address homelessness and called on Santa Clara County to increase its share of services. He’s upped encampment sweeps and slashed red tape in shelter production by declaring a homelessness crisis, and wants that to happen statewide. And he’s indicated he’s going to protect and expand federal Section 8 housing vouchers — though how he intends to do so is unclear.
When it comes to making tiny homes and interim housing the primary solution to solve homelessness, how that plays out largely depends on each city, according to Ryan Finnigan, deputy director of research for the Terner Center for Housing Innovation at University of California, Berkeley.
“San Jose was successful because they’ve kind of had an all hands on deck approach between the city, the service providers and philanthropy — and even the water district donating land for interim housing,” Finnigan told San José Spotlight. “(At the state level) you can provide the resources, and there’s some amount of streamlining that you can provide to make interim housing sites easier to permit, but you still have to have that recipe of the local folks coming together.”
Elizabeth Funk, CEO of DignityMoves, said Mahan’s strategy of building out temporary shelters is necessary to keep the crisis from getting worse.
“I think if we get everybody indoors, it takes the pressure off the system,” Funk told San José Spotlight. “But we first got to stop the devastation, and then we can build permanent housing that we need in a time frame that is realistic.”
Funk, who has worked closely with Mahan to build multiple tiny homes sites in San Jose and helped author several state bills, said there are several issues Mahan has been pushing as mayor that he would likely work to change if he becomes governor. One of those is making more state funding available to address homelessness and more flexible funding that wouldn’t be required just for permanent housing, she said.
Funding yet to meet shelter goals
This fiscal year, the state has zeroed out its main source of homelessness funding — the Homelessness Housing, Assistance and Prevention Program. The funding can be used toward homelessness prevention, rental assistance, temporary and permanent housing, outreach, services and shelter improvements. San Jose has largely spent the money on funding temporary shelter operations.
“A lot of our programs have now declared that unsheltered homelessness is the top priority, and yet the funding hasn’t caught up, and that’s going to be something he’s going to address,” Funk said.
Mahan’s gubernatorial campaign spokesperson did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
“A lot of our programs have now declared that unsheltered homelessness is the top priority, and yet the funding hasn’t caught up, and that’s going to be something he’s going to address.”
Elizabeth Funk, CEO of DignityMoves
While temporary shelter may solve the problem of people living on the streets, it won’t solve homelessness at its root cause — the lack of affordable permanent housing. That isn’t being addressed, Benjamin Henwood, director of University of Southern California’s Homelessness Policy Research Institute, said.
In the 1980s, U.S. Housing and Urban Development began to slash its investments in low-income housing under President Ronald Reagan. Experts point to this time as the start of what has led to a significant shortfall of affordable homes.
“There’s no solution to homelessness without increasing the availability of affordable housing,” Henwood told San José Spotlight. “Maybe these tiny homes are preferable to living on the streets, but it’s not clear if that will be true over the long term, and whether or not people will eventually leave those communities. What’s the long-term plan here?”
Tiny homes, large unknowns
The sustainability of Mahan’s tiny home plans is also coming under scrutiny, with advocates questioning the effectiveness of these sites after recent reports of poor management across multiple locations.
When it comes to being more efficient and fast-tracking shelter production, experts agree it’s necessary to address the homelessness crisis.
“It is helpful to cut through the red tape that allows shelter programs to come together faster, but the local communities still have to be the ones that put up the land and the money in the first place for those sites to become reality,” Finnigan said.
In terms of how Mahan could expand Section 8 voucher programs, as stated on his housing platform, that can only be done at the congressional level since it is a federal program, Henwood said.
Section 8 vouchers are underfunded, with only one quarter of qualifying households receiving it. Others languish on housing voucher waitlists for years. Henwood said there hasn’t been broad consensus on this issue. Subsidized housing is not viewed in the same way as Medi-Cal and food aid needs.
“We can obviously afford it,” Henwood said. “I just think as a society, we haven’t said, ‘Yes, we believe that.’”
Contact Joyce Chu at joyce@sanjosespotlight.com or @joyce_speaks on X.
This story originally appeared in San Jose Spotlight.