We asked District 10 Council finalists Arjun Batra and George Casey for their perspectives on the upcoming Council debate regarding if, and how, Council should reallocate Measure E Housing funds. Their answers below. An Opp Now exclusive.
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Remember all the local shenanigans over SB9 and so-called "Opportunity Housing" in SJ? Turns out it may be unconstitutional and dead in the water, at least for charter cities. CityWatch LA and Westside Current cover the blockbuster court ruling, below.
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The CA state audit that blistered San Jose and statewide homelessness programs for ineffectiveness called forth a prickly, self-justifying, and lengthy response from SJ City Manager Jennifer Maguire. Scott Beyer of the Market Urbanism Report gives Maguire's 15-pager a close read, and finds that it's evasive and doesn't face up to the legit financial and strategic failures the audit so clearly revealed. An Opp Now exclusive.
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Hold onto your (wet) wallets. Opp Now contributor and local City Planning graduate student Susie Murillo takes a look at upcoming plans for the county water district to jack up rates, yet again, with little accountability and dubious reasoning. An Opp Now exclusive.
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Former SJ CM and current Planning Commissioner Pierluigi Oliverio takes a look back at how SJ's and the state's homelessness efforts went sideways. Spoiler alert: good intentions can go astray. An Opp Now exclusive.
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While local media soft-pedaled the blockbuster State Auditor's report that found that SJ (and statewide) homelessness programs don't work, national housing experts and media were more brutally honest. Excerpts from Calmatters, L.A. Focus, L.A Times, and more, below.
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San Jose city government is once again taking big-time heat for its homeless spending--this time in the form of a devastating CA state audit that finds the city's programs are ineffective and unaccountable. Scott Beyer of the Market Urbanism Report provides a sorely-needed pathway for a return to fiscal and management sanity. An Opp Now exclusive.
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The California State Auditor has delivered a deeply critical report on San Jose's Housing Department (HD), finding that the HD "failed to adequately track $300 million in homelessness spending" (Merc headline). But did the failures of San Jose's housing department start in 2020 or did they begin much earlier? We exclusively interview former San Jose council member and financial watchdog Johnny Khamis about his experiences with overt San Jose Housing Dept mismanagement during his years in office (2013 to 2020).
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Concerns about non profit accountability in SJ have a long history of being ignored. Irene Smith of the Independent Leadership Group and United Housing Alliance suggests that the blistering State Audit report on SJ's out-of-control homelessness expenditures means it's finally time to get serious about managing non profits that receive city funds. Originally on Medium NonProfit Accountability Registry.
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The sycamores leaf. Twilights linger along the Monte Bello ridge. The crack of baseball bats provides a steady backbeat to the mournful ranchera music that pours out of the open windows of passing cars. It's Spring. Peter Coe Verbica (also known by the pen name "Shijin") explores the celebration, the work, the wonder, and the toil of rebirth in a series of three haiku.
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The Dave Cortese-requested audit reveals that the statewide and San Jose homeless-industrial-complex are hoovering up vast amounts of cash with little or no effectiveness--and even less oversight. Thomas Buckely reports in California Globe.
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Matt Haney, SF Assemblymember, intro's AB2479--aiming to unlock state funds for sober living requirements in subsidized, state-funded housing. The bill responds to the epidemic of drug overdoses and addiction enabled by CA's barrier-free, hugely expensive, and painfully slow-to-build Housing First model. Additional reporting from Ethan Varian at the Merc, below.
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