With California facing a wide-open gubernatorial race to replace Gov. Gavin Newsom, Mayor Matt Mahan is using the moment to showcase San Jose’s progress in reducing unsheltered homelessness and sway prospective candidates into restoring crucial funding and ensuring that all cities and counties do their part to solve the crisis.
San Jose is on the brink of tripling its shelter capacity this year — continuing Mahan’s deviation from the Housing First model and his insistence that the streets cannot become a waiting room for the unhoused as they await permanent supportive housing.
But the mayor has become increasingly frustrated with the leadership in Sacramento over budget and policy decisions — especially on homelessness — that he said could derail or limit local progress.
On Friday, Mahan gave a tour of the city’s recently opened Cherry Avenue Emergency Interim Housing site to five gubernatorial candidates — billionaire investor and philanthropist Tom Steyer, former Orange County Rep. Katie Porter, former state Controller Betty Yee, state Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond and former majority leader of the State Assembly Ian Calderon.
Many of the candidates on Friday acknowledged San Jose’s progress and the role its strategy played in it
“We’ve been able to talk a lot about the resources that we’ve allocated, but I feel like there’s just not been enough, and I feel like there just has not been enough coordination with local governments, local agencies, and mayors like Mayor Mahan,” Calderon said. “We have to re-evaluate the programs that are working and the ones that are not working and often you just see a disconnect between the state’s priorities and what’s actually making a difference on the ground. This is a great example of that, with the funding being cut for these exact programs and projects that are making the biggest amount of difference.”
Porter and Steyer also said Friday that the state had not placed enough emphasis on interim housing, with the former emphasizing the need for homelessness prevention resources, given the struggles around housing construction and how detrimental it is to the health of unhoused residents to leave them on the streets.
“I think we’re not spending enough on prevention,” Porter said. “That’s something I would try to change, whether that’s eviction assistance, whether it’s rapid rehousing (or) whether it’s identifying populations that are really at risk of homelessness.”
Mahan maintains that the only way to create such solutions is through partnership.
“A third of all funding for the system we built out was (Homeless Housing, Assistance and Prevention program) dollars from the state, which is why I’ve made so much noise and been such a fly in the ointment around my disappointment that HHAP was zeroed out in this year’s budget,” he said. “This flexible, continuous funding from the state is what’s enabling innovative localities like San Jose to really move the needle and give people dignity and make our community safer and cleaner, so I’m just asking for partnership.”
Mahan, who has not entirely closed the book on running for governor himself, took aim at statewide leadership in late October when he announced the creation of a coalition centered around advocating for his “Back to Basics” agenda — focused on pillars such as unsheltered homelessness, building more housing and improving public safety — to legislators and gubernatorial candidates.
While homelessness has remained a top issue locally for many years, Mahan – a Democrat – has not shied away from criticizing members of his own party over how they have handled the crisis or created impediments to progress.
He ripped lawmakers – accusing them of talking out of both sides of their mouths – for demanding progress while stripping HHAP funding, to which the state had previously allocated $1 billion per year. He also criticized them for gutting a bill he worked on with state Sen. Catherine Blakespear that would require cities and counties to assume some state-designated responsibilities and share costs related to the unsheltered homelessness crisis, arguing that the big cities should not have to shoulder the entire burden.
More recently, he rebuked Newsom for vetoing Assemblymember Matt Haney’s bill that would have allowed local governments to use up to 10% of state homelessness housing funds to support sober living programs.
Steyer and Bay Area congressman Eric Swalwell are the latest entrants to the Democratic field that includes former U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary and California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Calderon, Porter, Thurmond and Yee.
On the Republican side, the two leading candidates standing out from the pack are former Fox News political commentator Steve Hilton and Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco.
A poll released Thursday by Emerson College showed the race remains tight, with Bianco at 13% followed by Swalwell and Hilton at 12% and Porter slightly behind at 11%. Thirty-one percent of voters in Emerson’s poll were undecided.
With such a crowded field and no candidate separating from the pack, Mahan has acknowledged the power local leaders have at this juncture through their endorsements, which is why he wants to see how the candidates align with pressing local issues and serve as a change agent.