☆ The self-licking ice cream cone
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Housing provider Dean Hotop takes a close look at the City's latest initiative to abate homelessness via sponsored RV parking spots. Getting down and dirty with the numbers, Hotop contends there are far more productive ways to turn taxpayer dollars into real (and lasting) change; and by funding yet another failed solution, gov’t props up its self-perpetuating Homeless Industrial Complex. An Opp Now exclusive.
In political jargon, a self-licking ice cream cone is a self-perpetuating system that has no purpose other than to sustain itself (source: Wikipedia).
A self-licking ice cream cone is a term used to describe any group or organization that exists only to perpetuate itself. Like a dog chasing its own tail, such an organization is a never-ending loop that feeds back on itself, but is of little or no benefit to anyone else (source: Irish Times).
Is This What We’ve Become?
We have voted, time and again, to increase taxes on ourselves (i.e., Measure A, Measure E, etc.), all in the name of ending homelessness in San Jose. Clearly, we are not without compassion, care, or concern for our less fortunate brothers and sisters in the streets, creeks, and RVs. Election results are clear: We care. But why haven’t we seen results in the streets and for our brothers and sisters themselves? Have we just become one giant societal self-licking ice-cream cone in trying to solve homelessness?
Let’s hope not, but the evidence is piling up that we are. We’ve voted taxes on ourselves, elected officials to create legislation, plans, and hire staff to implement those plans. But in the end, the problem only seems to get worse, increasing the call for more taxes, more legislation, more plans, and more hires.
The search for evidence to the contrary only turns up more evidence that it's actually true.
The Most Recent Example
Beginning around 2019, SJ City Council began laying the groundwork for sanctioned homeless campsites, including RV parking. Great! Fast forward to June of this year, and City Council voted on a half-baked plan to lease six acres of industrial land at 1300 Berryessa and turn it into an RV parking site for 120 RVs. (Note: I’ll explain shortly why “half-baked plan” is emphasized). On the surface, this is a great plan to get RVs out of residential and business neighborhoods and locate them at an industrial site where additional services can be provided.
However, when Council approved signing the 10-year lease agreement, City staff only included “estimates” of what it would cost to prep the site, as well as to operate it over those 10 years. Fast forward a mere six months to the 12/12/2023 City Council meeting, and we discover those “estimates” were wildly off—after taxpayers were locked into the 10-year lease. Locking into a lease before all the variables are known is not a good way to do business. (Quick reminder that our current Mayor touted his business background while interviewing for the job.)
The Devil Is in the Details
In the June proposal presented to Council, the site improvement costs were estimated at $4.3M (source: 6/6 memorandum), and that has now ballooned to a new estimate of $19.3M (still an estimate however, to be fair; source: 12/12 memorandum).
Operating costs were estimated as $3.2M/year in June, and the new estimate is $5M/year as of December 12. The lease itself will cost a total of $19M for the full 10 years. Oh, and best estimate is the site will not be ready until late 2024, a full 18 months after taxpayers began paying monthly rent on the site.
Breaking It Down
The 1300 Berryessa RV parking site will cost taxpayers $88M over the 10-year lease for 120 RV parking spots—fully amortized, that works out to just a little over $6,000 per month per parking spot. Did anyone do this level of math or consider the alternative uses of the $88M?
Better Alternatives?
How could that $88M, or $6,000 per spot per month, be better spent? A couple of possibilities:
$6k/month could fund four $1500/month rental vouchers—providing real homes to people (480 to be exact), instead of 120 parking spaces. Note: For anyone who argues there aren’t enough vacant units in SJ to accomplish this, there are over 150k rental units in SJ. For that argument to hold water, SJ would have to have a vacancy rate of less than 0.32%.
A quick survey of a handful of the largest, currently for-sale multi-family properties in SJ shows an average asking price of $310k/unit. $88M would purchase 283 such units outright and provide real homes to more than 2x the number of people at the RV site, who will still be homeless, BTW.
Also, consider that SJ owns the 24 acres under what was formerly known as Raging Waters, which includes a paved, lit, six-acre parking lot—approximately the same as the Berryessa site. Is this the best use of that parcel of land? Perhaps yes, at least temporarily, as it should be able to be made operational in a matter of weeks for parking RVs on.
We Should All Be Embarrassed
All of us. Voters voted for results, but have not demanded those results of our elected leaders. Taxpayers have paid our taxes, but have not asked hard questions of our elected leaders about what we are getting in return. The media has not held anyone accountable by reporting on this. (Note: No local media outlets have reported on the above estimate blowouts in any way, shape, or form.) Councilmembers have not asked staff the hard questions of what else we could get for these investments, and they continuously vote to approve bad investments with bad results. Collectively, we must do better to turn billions of dollars spent into real results to help real people in need.
Rather, we have collectively become one giant, complacent self-licking ice cream cone as we celebrate SJ’s 20th anniversary of its 10-year plan to end homelessness.
But we do not have to accept this as our ultimate fate. Change is possible, and that change needs to start with voters and taxpayers contacting their Councilmembers and the Mayor and demanding better results. If all else fails, we will continue to have elections, and we must vote for change because the status quo is not working.
Related:
SF analysis: PSH launches aggressive spiral of more homelessness, more gov't spending
Common sense solutions to homelessness crisis stymied by “Homeless Industrial Complex”
How SF—and other cities—can level up its anti-homelessness playbook (part 3 of 3)
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