☆ SJ/SF homelessness experts on Housing First, large congregate shelters, Prop 36, & more (the full conversation)
Image by Elvert Barnes
D3 candidate Irene Smith and Recovery Education Coalition’s Tom Wolf parse the discouraging data on current local/statewide homelessness approaches—and how they think we can get back on track with interim housing, CARE Court, Prop 36 enforcement, and behavioral codes. All parts consolidated, below, from this Opp Now exclusive.
On Interim Congregate Shelters:
Opportunity Now: Homeless strategies in SF and SJ get a lot of heat—including from us. But let's start with what's working.
Irene Smith: I'm a big fan of Major Freeman from the Salvation Army in Silicon Valley. They have rows of bunk beds in their shelter, and everyone there is working together. The sobriety is very strong. I'm excited to see their women's shelter opening up hopefully soon with new funding. This compassionate approach to shelter is dignified and cost-effective.
Tom Wolf: All of that is music to my ears, Irene. I, too, know Major Freeman and am a fan of his work. Sixty percent of everyone who engages with our local Salvation Army finds a permanent housing solution within six months (while 80% of folks who go into a shelter in SF return to the street within 30 days).
People might not know this, but the fastest growing demographic right now of people experiencing homelessness are women (making up almost one-third of the homeless population in San Jose, Santa Clara County). So it's incumbent upon us to provide them services as quickly as possible, and prioritize women as quickly as possible, because every day that they are on the street they are at risk of sexual assault, abuse, etc.
IS: Yes. To me, this underscores the importance of greatly increasing our shelter capacity in SJ. I am very worried that as we sweep people off the creeks to make sure we don't get fined, the homeless are simply moving to other areas of D3—parks, parking lots, front yards, and front porches. We will continue to play whack-a-mole with a problem of great moral magnitude—until we greatly increase shelter capacity. By orders of magnitude. We just need the political will to do it.
TW: I agree about pursuing interim solutions to homelessness. I think Michael Shellenberger referred to it as Shelter First, Housing Earned.
We're seeing 181,000 homeless people in California right now. And it's increasing—by 31% over a five-year period. In San Francisco, for every one person that exits homelessness, four people enter into homelessness. We need to act quickly.
Also, I notice that we don't have parity with other counties in the state. If we could get all 58 counties on board with some aligned similar plan, I think you could see homelessness be managed much better.
On Sprung Structures:
ON: What are some examples of these quick interim shelters, done well?
IS: San Jose's mayor, Matt Mahan, has just designated Watson Park in the Northside neighborhood in District 3 as a safe sleeping space. If we can get this pilot done correctly, we have so much hope for the future. We need to show neighborhoods and our unhoused neighbors that we can create and manage sanctioned sites in a way that works for everyone.
But, quite frankly, we need a whole lot more shelter capacity—and we need it now. I would like to see us explore large-scale shelters, like have been successful in SF, Reno, and Portland, that use sprung structures [Editor's note: Also called Navigation Centers or Living Centers, these are tensioned fabric buildings that are built relatively quickly and cheaply] to shelter up to 1,000 people/site. Then we layer on services such as job training, addiction rehabilitation, mental health, group therapy, safety, and security, and the like.
TW: Yes, I was in Oregon last year in Clackamas County. Their government approved the building of a recovery center, and they were going to start with a sprung structure. Turns out, they could actually get it built after permitting within six weeks. Six weeks, and they can get up and operating!
On Subsidized Housing:
ON: So you both mentioned interim shelter solutions—such as sprung structures—as key to our homelessness approach. Yet our city governments more commonly commission new subsidized housing, which can cost $1M/door.
TW: Right. That's just not scalable.
IS: Downtown SJ has new homeless housing on the corner that's going to go for $1.1 million, and that's only the hardware costs. It doesn't include any of the services or management, which will add up to a sizable ongoing cost.
On "Ending" Homelessness:
TW: And this begs the larger question: how do we make these changes? I've found in my advocacy work that most of it is policy and ideologically driven. You can't necessarily change someone's ideology. But you can certainly change policy if you advocate hard enough for it, be consistent, and understand that the homeless and drug crises are a marathon.
Whenever I hear a politician say, “We're going to end homelessness in five years, we're going to end homelessness in 10 years,” I just laugh because it's not possible. What we can do, though, is manage homelessness and reduce homelessness.
IS: I like to say we can't solve homelessness; but within months, we could start to get everybody sheltered via sprung structures with their tents inside. And during that time, we could help folks get the services they need, whether that's rehabilitation, mental health support, job training, etc., and keep them on that ladder of housing success. So that when they're ready—and we have capacity at the next rung—they can move up to a place like the Salvation Army, a tiny home, or a group home. They'll constantly graduate to the next level of housing and independence.
On the Housing First Ideology:
ON: Earlier, you both mentioned some practical ways California can fight homelessness better—adopting more and larger interim shelters, and uniting local jurisdictions under a larger plan. So what are your thoughts on the Valley's prevailing “Housing First” methodology?
TW: Homelessness is as much a public health issue as it is a housing issue, a law enforcement and accountability issue. Think of it as a multi-legged stool; if you take away one of those legs, the stool falls over.
For the last nine years in California, we've taken away one of those legs (interim solutions) by defunding the shelter system. Then, another leg (law enforcement and accountability). So now we're trying to sit on a stool with one and a half legs.
IS: I can tell you that the homeless advocacy industry has made a wrong turn conceptually. Because when they've asked homeless people about their needs, and they've been told they want P.O. boxes, clothing, etc. But this has been interpreted as, “Oh, they must require housing before getting further help.”
But that logic doesn't stand up. There's a middle ground. It's not a choice between everyone living on the creek side and everyone getting a subsidized $1.1 million home. The interim solution is to immediately build sprung structures and start helping folks up the ladder of housing success.
On Permanent Supportive Housing:
TW: Agreed. Right now, in San Francisco, we have about 16,000 people in Permanent Supportive Housing. The cost of the rent subsidies alone for those 16,000 people—for the City and County of San Francisco—is $400 million/year. That's not including costs of operation, security, management, etc. And that number's only going to grow as more people enter the system.
ON: And yet, despite the millions of dollars California pours annually into PSH, the data on health and safety is less than encouraging. How do you parse it?
TW: In 2023, it's estimated that 30% of SF's 811 overdose deaths took place in Permanent Supportive Housing. (Overall, since we started really tracking overdose deaths in 2018, 16% of overdoses have happened in PSH. And during Covid, 10% of everyone placed in a shelter-in-place hotel in SF died, but 0% were due to Covid.) 70% of all the overdoses have occurred at a fixed address.
Also, in Los Angeles, Homeland Services Authority is struggling with about a 10% overdose death rate within their Homekey programs, and about a 25% rate of people leaving the housing within a six-month period of time.
You can take someone off the street and address more surface-level health concerns like body lice; but many of these homeless people suffer from co-occurring disorders like substance use disorder, untreated mental illness, heart disease, diabetes, etc. While housing is key—I'm a huge YIMBY myself—we can't make substance abuse services voluntary for people who need them, or allow drug use inside PSH (Senate Bill 1380, passed in 2016). When we do, we're just turning those rooms into really expensive coffins.
On Ideological Disconnects:
ON: We’re hearing that there's “middle ground” solutions that are more data-supported than the Housing First methodology. So where's the disconnect? Why aren't local politicians pursuing them—but instead clinging to costly, failed initiatives?
TW: We're all working towards the same goal: to end homelessness. But I think some people get so close to the problem that they can't see the forest for the trees. While they're looking to reduce harm to the individual experiencing addiction or homelessness, they have to take a step back and consider harms to the broader community. And they must realize that trauma (exhibited in drug addiction, untreated mental illness, etc.) must be properly and compassionately addressed. This is where we benefit from: homeless sweeps, arresting organized drug dealers, arresting shoplifters or people openly using drugs.
Also, I think the pervasive idea that “housing is a human right” has been taken to an extreme level.
IS: As Tom mentioned, I think a lot of folks are still stuck on the Housing First model. There has been a pendulum swing. Initially, around the '80s, we started thinking that structures were the solution to the problem. Now, we are realizing that services are tantamount—and for many, sobriety and addiction rehab. Hopefully, we're getting more toward the middle: providing a variety of different shelters and services for folks in the beginning, and then moving them over into larger group living options or even tiny homes.
On Prop 36:
ON: Let's talk about Proposition 36, overwhelmingly supported by over two-thirds of CA voters in November. How much of an impact do you expect Prop 36 to have on local homelessness?
TW: So if I could get up and do my Prop 36 victory dance right now, I would. I was part of the leadership group that helped Prop 36 pass. So was Mayor Mahan. It's funny: this past election, we saw a break in the Democratic Party lines on this one in California. Quite a few state senators, assemblymen, mayors, and city councilmen went rogue on this and supported Prop 36.
Let me explain why I think Prop 36 is so significant. After Johnson v. Grants Pass was passed by the Supreme Court (and cities could resume doing homeless sweeps again), San Francisco swept Willow Alley—a hotspot of homelessness, drugs, overdoses, and sexual assault. They found that 25% of the 80 people they encountered had an open bench warrant in SF or another county. So the encampment wasn't just a bunch of people down on their luck. 25% of the people in that alley were absconding from law enforcement.
Having Proposition 36 in place brings back an element of accountability. Some people on the street need that—require law enforcement to be a part of their solution.
ON: What about residents' concern that Prop 36 won't actually get enforced by local DAs? Is this a valid worry?
IS: I’ll tell the story of a woman I met a couple years ago while door-knocking. I asked, “What's this car out in front of your house?” And she said, “Oh, that's my son.” The car was surrounded by tires on all sides, and cardboard was built up on top.
Turns out, her son was an attorney but started doing drugs, his life fell apart, and he ended up setting his room on fire. I tried telling her about the services the county offers. And her response (and desperation) saddened me: “Oh, I just really hope he gets into Elmwood Correctional Facility.” The mom wished her son could go to jail because there was no alternative for him. No place to go. Now with CARE Court, he can get the help he needs and will not be subject to Prop 36 prosecution.
In terms of Prop 36 in San Jose and Santa Clara County, we have a District Attorney who's on the fence about prosecuting to the fullest extent. Though we have police officers who plan on implementing Prop 36, it's really going to be in the DA's hands as to whether things get prosecuted. So we're waiting to see how it plays out in Santa Clara County.
TW: For me, I think every county (and, yes, our governor) is going to capitulate and start enforcing this. Even DA Brooke Jenkins in San Francisco, who didn't publicly support Prop 36, is now charging people under its statutes.
On CARE Court:
ON: What are your thoughts on CARE Court—how effective it might be in terms of compliance and accountability for our struggling neighbors?
IS: As an officer of the court for Santa Clara County, I'm concerned that we largely aren't focusing on the core issues for homelessness. But I'm hopeful for CARE Court.
For individuals who are incapable of caring for themselves and making day-to-day decisions for their life (like getting dressed, getting fed, basic self care), it mandates that they get the court-ordered treatment they need, including stabilization, medication, wellness and recovery supports, and connection to social services and housing. It's simply cruel and uncaring for our society to allow these people to wander—untreated and at great risk to themselves—along our creeksides and public spaces.
TW: I support CARE Court (just as I voted “yes” on Prop 1) as a model, as a concept. Because we're severely lacking substance abuse treatment across California. My concern is the lack of infrastructure.
I say this as a moderate Democrat: California has so many politicians who are focused on progressive values and moving forward with good ideas. But they're not focused on the implementation or the infrastructure to support them. So the ideas crash and burn.
IS: It sounds like they're not looking at the whole, total consequences of their plans. Certainly not offering us an end-to-end solution.
On Recovery-Based Infrastructure:
TW: That's correct. And I'll share this data with you both. This is just a correlation; I'm not going to make the argument about causation.
Between 2014 and 2023, with the passage of not only Proposition 47 but also AB 109 and SB 57, California's prison population decreased by about 70,000. In that same time period, homelessness increased in California by almost 70,000. I'm not suggesting that everybody that got out of prison ended up homeless. But I'm suggesting it contributed to the increase in homelessness—because, again, we didn't provide the proper infrastructure for folks coming out.
This is despite really well-intentioned efforts by local reentry groups, adult probation, and other probation departments across the State.
ON: What could better “infrastructure” look like for homeless individuals recovering from substance use addiction?
TW: Drug courts could focus less on assisted or intensive outpatient treatment. Imagine a homeless person going to drug court, being put in outpatient treatment and given a prescription for Suboxone, and then released back to the street and expected to stay clean. If you put someone who completed a 90-day Medi-Cal treatment program into an SRO [single-room occupancy] in San Francisco, the relapse rate right now is about 90% for those individuals.
They should focus more on residential treatment. In SF, we have open beds paid for by the Dept of Public Health, and more that are privately funded that are free through the Salvation Army. And San Francisco's new mayor has promised to put up 1,500 shelter beds within six months.
IS: Better infrastructure also means finding an end-to-end solution for homeless sweeps, realizing that a complex, integrated problem also needs a multifaceted solution. Right now, what we're seeing when we don't allow people at the creeks is that they're moving into the neighborhoods downtown. I'm getting constant calls from residents of, “I've got this person on my porch. I've got this person doing harm to my property.”
ON: So how does this idea of fleshed-out supports apply to Permanent Supportive Housing?
TW: We should establish and fund recovery-based PSH, like what the Bay Area Council introduced last year in Assembly Bill 2893—making some of these services compulsory as a condition of individuals' lease agreement.
Also, did you know that in the PSH space in California, Colorado, Washington, and Oregon, they don't report drug overdose deaths as “negative outcomes”? They report them just as deaths. They're unhelpfully obfuscating the data on PSH this way.
On Behavioral Codes:
IS: A lot is said about the need for a code of conduct for PSH. But some have them and simply don't enforce them. I've observed this with the PSH down here firsthand.
Here's why: when they do enforce a rule and give three warnings beforehand, those warnings get published in, say, SJ Spotlight and get painted as “egregious rules,” and that “these people don't feel comfortable in their living space.” So there's definitely external pressure for PSH management to be lenient on conduct.
TW: Behavioral codes are so important. Look at Denver. In 2022, their new mayor embraced Housing First models and started doing Homekey-style housing. Homelessness went from 5,000 in 2022 to 8,000 at the end of last year (40% increase).
And their big hotel they converted into barrier-free housing had over 600 calls to 911 last year for crimes, overdoses, assaults, etc. And the City of Denver spent over $400 million for these “solutions.”
IS: Homeless folks in our communities are asking for help, and all we're doing is enabling. We're not helping.
TW: We've certainly blurred the line between helping and enabling. Yet every human being is capable of recovery—I'm living proof of that. You have to want it, but you also need to be given the right set of tools to accomplish it.
Tom Wolf, formerly homeless and in recovery from heroin and fentanyl addiction, is an outspoken advocate—and sometimes critic—about California's policies that have impacted homelessness. He also co-founded the California Peace Coalition and founded the Recovery Education Coalition.
Irene Smith—D3 Council candidate and head of Independent Leadership Group—has lived in downtown San Jose for 35 years and observed the worsening homelessness crisis since 2016. She is also a pro tem judge for Santa Clara County and has been a housing provider for 35 years.
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