Joseph Geha [00:01:07] Homelessness in San Jose is a major problem. Over 6 ,300 people counted as homeless in some of the latest numbers. Usually those counts are considered undercounts, so it’s a significant problem. People have a lot of different feelings about how it should be approached, but most people seem to agree that it’s a major problem that the city should be doing all it can to solve.
Alan Montecillo [00:01:39] And so what has the city been doing about homelessness, especially the mayor, Matt Mahan?
Joseph Geha [00:01:46] So Mayor Matt Mahan, since taking office and even during his initial campaigns, you know, he’s been pushing for what he called basics, right? Back to basics was one of his campaign slogans about public safety and about homelessness.
Matt Mahan [00:01:59] I want us to act with a greater sense of urgency. I think we have have a true humanitarian crisis on the streets.
Joseph Geha [00:02:06] And what he’s done now since having the governing power for a couple of years is really push things toward shorter term solutions. The city has said that with their current shelter space, both with places run by the county and by the city, but within the bounds of San Jose, there are several thousand people who still do not have places to go right now, even as the city plans to in the next several months and coming years more than triple its temporary shelter space, there’s still going to be a shortage for a long time, even in some very optimistic projections. And so in the past, while the city has kind of taken a mixed approach towards supporting things like permanent affordable housing and supportive housing with services, so people have a place to live forever, and also supported some short -term solutions like temporary shelters, Mayor Matt Mahan has really pushed it toward a focus almost entirely on short -term. like temporary shelters, like sanctioned encampments, like safe parking sites, and now this latest program.
Alan Montecillo [00:03:13] We’re talking now, Joseph, speaking of this latest program, because last Tuesday, the city of San Jose announced that it would be launching a pilot program called Homeward Bound.
Joseph Geha [00:03:26] Yeah, so the mayor and the city’s director of housing, Eric Solivan, came out and essentially told folks at a press conference that the city is putting up $200,000 of its housing funds to help support a pilot program to buy train or bus tickets for people who are unhoused in the city, so long as they have somewhere to go in another part of the city or another part of the country.
Matt Mahan [00:03:51] Homeward Bound offers one way out. If our outreach workers can offer people family reconnection services immediately, that saves a bed in our shelter system for someone who truly doesn’t have anyone to support them.
Joseph Geha [00:04:06] The city is willing to help facilitate their transportation and get them to this place where they may become, you know, housed and more stable. And it’s not a new idea. Other cities have tried this, but in San Jose, this would be the first time the city is officially kind of supporting it from its own housing department.
Alan Montecillo [00:04:27] I want to know about the details here. Like, how is that going to work? Are they going to take a survey? Like, hey, who has family that could take them in? Who is this intended for? How is this going to work?
Joseph Geha [00:04:38] Yeah so technically anybody who’s currently unhoused is eligible. If you are one of the many thousands living on the streets of San Jose and trying to find a better situation you have the prerequisites already. Outreach workers who work for the city currently or who contract with the city through a non -profit who are already going out to talk to unhoused people on a daily or weekly basis and learn about their living situation and ask them about their needs well they’re essentially just going to be adding one more question into something that they might already be talking with them about, and that question’s going to be, hey, do you think you have a family member or a friend or someone from your past who would be willing to put you up? And if that conversation develops into, you know, the right opportunity being there, that outreach worker can verify some of those details with, like, a phone call to a family member or a friend and try to ensure that all that is correct and that there’s a person willing to accept someone on the other end. And then if that all lines up, they can help them buy a bus or train ticket right there on the spot, or maybe within a couple of days and get this person set up and on their way.
Alan Montecillo [00:05:44] And this would be a bus or train ticket to potentially anywhere in the country.
Joseph Geha [00:05:49] Anywhere. Yeah, it sounds like anywhere that can be reached by bus or train up to a $1 ,000 limit is what the city said they will spend on each person. At least in the early going here, that’s going to be on the table.
Alan Montecillo [00:06:01] You know, I know that you can, through this program, get transported to another part of San Jose. It’s not just to get people out of the area. But I do think embedded in this story is this idea that I hear a lot, which is that people come to cities in California, like San Jose, San Francisco, LA, from other parts of the country because it’s a better place to live outside. It’s warmer and there’s more resources to essentially take advantage of. How true is that in San Jose? Do we even know how many people living outside in San Jose are from out of town versus in the city?
Joseph Geha [00:06:40] It’s a common misconception that a lot of people who are unhoused might come to places like San Jose for, you know, more generous handouts or better weather, but the data doesn’t really support that. What we have seen in surveys from city and county officials who who work with the unhoused is that the large majority of people living on the streets of San Jose right now report that their last known physical address was in San Jose or in Santa Clara County, which is a broad place. but certainly they’re not necessarily, you know coming from afar before they became homeless they were living here or living in this region when whatever the circumstances were that occurred to make them lose their houses
Alan Montecillo [00:07:26] As you said, this is new for San Jose, but isn’t new in general. And this certainly isn’t the first time I’ve heard of this idea. Do we have any examples, recent examples or otherwise, of this type of program in action?
Joseph Geha [00:07:42] Absolutely. One of the best programs, I guess, to make a comparison for here in the Bay Area is San Francisco. In San Francisco, they had a program called Homeward Bound, which is the same name as the San Jose program that’s been running for about 20 years. That program was started by then -mayor Gavin Newsom in San Francisco. The issue there is we’ve had some kind of mixed results in terms of understanding how successful it has been. Some of the issues might be, okay, so the person gets set up with this ticket, they end up where they’re going, and maybe even they call the back to let them know. that, yes, I’ve made it to so -and -so’s place, and things are going good. But who knows what happens to them a week, a month, three months, a year out? Are they becoming homeless in another city or another portion of the city? Are they struggling in some way? Is their life improving in a marked way?
Dr. Jamie Chang [00:08:37] The lack of a bus ticket home is not the root cause of homelessness.
Joseph Geha [00:08:41] I spoke with Dr. Jamie Chang, she’s an associate professor at UC Berkeley’s School of Social Welfare, and she has raised some concerns about whether or not the program does enough to find out if it is a success.
Dr. Jamie Chang [00:08:53] There is very, very little evidence as to the long -term success of these programs. We don’t really know what happens to people once they’re dropped off at their destination.
Joseph Geha [00:09:03] And that’s why some people have concerns about whether or not the program is doing what it actually intends to do.
Dr. Jamie Chang [00:09:09] While these programs might temporarily be effective at removing people from an area without a system in place to ensure their success elsewhere, I’m skeptical about its overall efficacy.
Alan Montecillo [00:09:27] Okay, so people like Mayor Matt Mahan say, this is just one tool in the toolbox. We’re trying a lot of things. If you have a loved one who can take care of you somewhere else, we will help you get there. People like Dr. Chang are warning that there’s not a lot of data or evidence that this really works, at least based on San Francisco’s experience. I gotta imagine there are critics based in San Jose as well who think that this is a bad idea, right?
Joseph Geha [00:09:54] Yeah, one of the people I spoke with is Gail Osmer, and she’s a long -time advocate for people who are unhoused.
Gail Osmer [00:10:01] I don’t agree with it. Some people do want to go home and it works for them and I think it’s a great idea, but I think mainly it’s going to be a failure.
Joseph Geha [00:10:12] But her biggest concern when I spoke with her about this is, you know, a few things. First of all, a trust element. She’s not really certain that folks who are in the unhoused community who might have a little bit of, you know, distrust of authority figures and stuff, or someone they may not know in an outreach worker very closely, that they’re just going to start spilling all these details about their friends or family or their past lives or somebody who might be able to take them in. You know, it may not be a subject they want to talk about.
Gail Osmer [00:10:37] Do you think the unhoused are going to trust a stranger or somebody they don’t really know to give them information or even talk to them about going home?
Joseph Geha [00:10:47] The second problem she had, of course, is just similar to Dr. Chang, is the verification of where they’re going to end up. And, you know, she raised an example, of course, that the city, even through its best efforts and good faith, may not actually be able to verify what kind of home environment people are going to be sent to.
Gail Osmer [00:11:04] But there’s a lot of problems that people have probably at home, you know, and we don’t know the home environment. What if somebody is clean and sober and they send them home or whatever, and they’re in a home where there’s, you know, alcoholism?
Joseph Geha [00:11:21] The connotation with hearing about bus or train tickets being offered for unhoused people to essentially leave the area, it does sometimes strike people the wrong way. One of the concerns that Gail Osmer raised with us was that she believes the mayor might be doing this for the wrong reasons. She said essentially that he wants unhoused people out of sight and out of mind.
Gail Osmer [00:11:48] I think this is just a way to get rid of the unhoused from the mayor.
Alan Montecillo [00:11:56] So all that said, Joseph, what’s next for the program? I know it was just announced on Tuesday. What has the city said? How will we know if it’s working?
Joseph Geha [00:12:07] Yeah, so, you know, as far as the city officials have told us, this can pretty much be implemented immediately and get started right away. The city did say it is going to emphasize that upfront verification. It’s gonna do all it can through its teams and its workers to ensure that the person or place that they are helping an unhoused person reach in the end is a good place for them. As far as whether the follow -up is actually going to be there, it sounds like the city is not going to put a lot of resources into that. So what kind of data and what kind of qualitative evaluation the city is gonna put into deciding whether or not to. continue or expand this program in the future after its initial run, it still kind of remains to be seen.
Alan Montecillo [00:12:53] We should say this is one of many things San Jose is doing. You know, it’s a $200 ,000 pilot program, which is not a lot of money for a city of San Jose size, definitely a lot of money for a regular person. But what does this story tell us about the city’s priorities when it comes to homelessness and housing?
