COPA Funding: The Measure E sleight-of-hand trick?

Local small housing provider Dean Hotop takes a close look at SJ Housing Dept's recent presentation to SJ City Council and discovers, voila, they appear to be raiding Measure E funds for another expenditure--handouts to the local nonprofit housing cabal. If you've ever wondered where all the billions of dollars local taxpayers have spent--to little or no effect--to solve homelessness and affordable housing crisis, take a look at the financial chicanery outlined below, not to mention the $200,000+/year salaries of executive directors of regional "nonprofit" housing providers

As a longtime fan of David Copperfield’s magical artistry, I have to give full applause to the San Jose Housing Department’s mastery of smoke and mirrors on February 15, 2022, before the City Council.

Without ever even mentioning COPA before the council, or in any of the presentation material, SJHD managed to secure upwards of $50M/year, from San Jose taxpayers, for converting privately owned housing into publicly funded, socialized housing. Measure E is the funding source, COPA is the mechanism.

While I’ve never once been able to even have a hint of how the legendary Mr. Copperfield performs his illusions, SJHD’s trickery is on display, in plain sight, for anyone who is looking to see. Unfortunately, our Council does not ever bother to look for these nefarious sleights of hands but instead, accepts the illusion as reality.

Measure E Reallocation BEFORE COPA

The real brilliance in SJHD’s illusory plan is to have Measure E funds reallocated BEFORE bringing COPA to the Council for approval. Perhaps, had SJHD stated up front that this was the plan, it might have raised a few eyebrows or even elicited some intelligent questions – but that never happened, because COPA was never mentioned, directly, in this request by SJHD.

Please see the following table from SJHD’s presentation to the council. This is the requested ‘new’ allocation of Measure E funds. Do you see where COPA is mentioned? Neither did the Council.

Take a look at the top three categories; they add up to 75%, less than the prior allocation of 90% and now 25% is allocated to Homeless support, up from the prior 10%. Yes, increasing the homeless support allocation from 10% to 25% is a good thing. In fact, it’s awesome! Considering that Measure E was sold to voters as a new tax to address the homeless crisis, perhaps we should start it at 100% and leave it there until the homeless crisis is solved and the taxpayers get a return on their money!

But that’s beside the point and this type of discussion is the smoke and mirrors distraction for what is really taking place. Previously, Measure E had ‘Spending Priorities’, but now we have ‘Proposed Uses of Funds’ to go with the new spending priority allocations.

Take a close look at the details of the ‘Proposed Uses of Funds’. Yes, the devil is always in the detail! Take note of the following: “…acquisition/rehabilitation or preservation developments…. sites under land trusts and shared-equity programs…”

Sound familiar? The stated goal of COPA is to acquire & preserve existing, older rental stock, using non-profits, land trusts and the creation of tenant shared-equity programs.

There it is, right in plain sight. Bravo to SJHD for pulling off this master illusion.

For more on COPA, check here.

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