San Jose has just as many homeless people as it did two years ago, despite sheltering many of them

Two years into an aggressive push to address homelessness San Jose has managed to bring more people indoors but the total number of unhoused residents remains stubbornly unchanged Related Articles In a nation growing hostile toward drugs and homelessness Los Angeles tries leniency homeless shelter beds are likely headed to Oakland Just not in Chinatown Fresh off testing presidential waters Newsom announces new housing and homelessness agency Bay Area cities are toughening up on homelessness Under Mayor Barbara Lee will Oakland follow suit Contra Costa County reports drop in homelessness A new point-in-time census issued Monday exposed that the city s homeless population was largely the same as s count of That s despite the city s efforts to increase its emergency shelter limit and hundreds of millions of dollars in society spending The count conducted in January as required by the federal executive offers a snapshot of homelessness on a single night It s used to help determine federal funding and track trends in encampments shelter usage and car dwellers San Jose fared slightly better than Santa Clara County overall where homelessness rose from the count to a record high in the latest tally going from to people That comes even as local agencies have moved more than people into permanent housing in modern years On the other side of the Bay Area Contra Costa County broadcasted an estimated decline in its homeless population from though six in homeless people there still lack a shelter bed Since taking office last year Mayor Matt Mahan has spearheaded a dual approach clearing encampments particularly RV clusters while ramping up investments in urgency shelters and temporary housing The city this year allocated more than million toward homelessness initiatives including interim housing outreach and encampment abatements That effort has paid off in at least one way more people are now off the streets The number of homeless residents in shelters rose by since while the unsheltered population declined by Since the number of sheltered homeless individuals has increased from to Our focus is ending the encampments and getting everybody indoors Mahan revealed in an interview To make room in the budget for new crisis housing city leaders in latest years redirected funds from a real estate transfer tax originally intended for permanent housing Critics though warn that without long-term housing investments the revolving door of homelessness will continue San Jose has also taken approaches to allow criminal penalties against specific homeless people Earlier this year the City Council approved a change to city code that Mahan pushed for which allows police to cite and arrest homeless people who refuse shelter The protocol has also been met with fierce criticism from homeless advocates Our society has nowhere near enough safe options for people who are absolutely trying to survive Jennifer Loving CEO of Destination Home previously described the Bay Area News Group Responding to homelessness with criminalized enforcement doesn t solve this situation and will never upshot in less people on the streets Related Articles In a nation growing hostile toward drugs and homelessness Los Angeles tries leniency homeless shelter beds are likely headed to Oakland Just not in Chinatown Fresh off testing presidential waters Newsom announces new housing and homelessness agency Bay Area cities are toughening up on homelessness Under Mayor Barbara Lee will Oakland follow suit Contra Costa County reports drop in homelessness Destination Home has also spoken out against the use of affordable housing funds for urgency interim housing Still Mahan and his administration have argued that temporary shelter offers immediate relief and that a visible reduction in street homelessness is a necessary first step This input proves that the set of policies we have advanced in San Jose in up-to-date years are moving us in the right direction Mahan reported But we can t do it alone if the rest of our county and leaders in Sacramento don t recognize that they need to shift their focus to getting people indoors we will not be able to solve this dilemma The state s homelessness predicament could be a liability to Gov Gavin Newsom especially as he considers a possible bid for the presidency On Friday just after returning from a trip to South Carolina where he spoke with voters Newsom communicated the creation of a new California Housing and Homelessness Agency which would focus on lowering housing costs and getting people off the streets