☆ How to make sure that this time, SJ homelessness audit galvanizes real change at City Hall
Following a California state audit which found that SJ's homeless programs were disorganized, untransparent, and wasteful, CM's Arjun Batra and Bien Doan propose that the City conduct its own audit. Market Urbanist's Scott Beyer unpacks what has to happen to ensure that this audit actually overhauls the city's current flawed system of expenditure and impact and will jumpstart a new model that demands accountability on the metrics that really matter. An Opp Now exclusive.
In a welcome contrast to City Manager Jennifer Maguire’s largely defensive response to the state audit--a move we described last month as passing the buck--Councilmembers Doan and Batra have spoken candidly about San Jose’s failure to lower homeless rates.
“The way this city addresses the homelessness crisis - structurally and programmatically - is a failure at this point,” Doan stated. “We keep going around in circles, playing these word games, patting ourselves on the back, saying we're doing a great job. Reality says different.”
Our previous column included five homeless strategy goals that council should shoot for in response to the state audit. They include:
establishing a viable spending plan
consolidating services under a single division
implementing clear and enforceable standards for contracted providers
tying funding to effectiveness in keeping people off the streets and maintaining order
lowering the cost of housing in general, namely temporary housing
The City audit, if it happens, should be done in exactly this spirit, with these goals in mind. Such goals can also inform how council works with the Manager. Since the city has heavily relied on permanent supportive housing as a means of reducing homelessness, the auditor and council should particularly scrutinize those programs.
The auditor should insist that the city develop comprehensive records of its homeless spending over the last few decades for review, and look into the $300 million that councilors Batra and Doan claim is unaccounted for.
The auditor should examine spending trends and how they correlate with homelessness trends in the city (that could get ugly, since increased spending has occurred alongside increased homelessness). This would help the auditor highlight programs which have received the most funding. This requires a comprehensive review of all the providers the city has worked with, and access to their records. Council’s role here can be to compare the results of the city’s current providers with those in cities which have gotten people sustainably housed and reduced or eliminated their dependence on the state. The auditors might, for example, look at various programs in Texas that rehouse the homeless cheaply and effectively, such as the public-private Haven for Hope in San Antonio.
Council should also insist that the city develop publicly-available dashboards on homeless statistics: how many people are in shelters, how many beds are needed, and how many housing units are needed. San Diego, the other city the state audited, has made this available. As the audit notes, they provide “updates on goals within reach in the next three years, performance data related to the implementation of the strategic goals, and progress toward housing goals.” This type of tracking has allowed San Diego to update its targets.
Similarly, the audit should include a postmortem of how nonprofits have been able to spend significantly without monitoring from the city. In turn, council can inquire about the contract performance management standards that the Manager claimed city officials have been trained in. Contrary to the Manager’s dismissal of this matter, the auditor and councilors should demand more transparency around cleaning near encampments.
In line with the goal of lowering construction costs, the City Auditor should look into the city’s affordable construction programs, which have so far underdelivered. It should identify the main drivers of cost increases (accounting for pandemic-related supply chain disruptions), examine the contractor bidding process, and explore the role San Jose’s slow permitting plays in the dysfunction.
Looking at success is also crucial, such as the results of the city’s tiny home program, which provides units at a fraction of the cost of permanent supportive housing. Similarly, the audit should explore why the city’s veteran homelessness approach has been comparatively successful and look for lessons that can be applied to its broader homelessness strategy.
Once the audit’s complete and the city has a stronger sense of its spending capacity, it should set a goal of getting a specific number of people off the street in a realistic number of years.
Interestingly, councilors Doan and Batra listed their own 4 goals in a press release about this audit proposal. Those goals include:
Defining the legal responsibilities of the city, county and state in addressing homelessness
Ensuring fiscal transparency and accountability with homelessness-related programs
Evaluating the potential benefits and challenges of consolidating homelessness-related services into a dedicated department
Assessing coordination of activities across departments, the County, and the City's service providers
There is thus some overlap between our vision and the councilors’. But at the end of the day, these are words on paper until there is real transparency and enforcement mechanisms around the spending. And neither the city nor its contracted providers have a strong enough incentive to do that on their own. Hopefully, San Jose government will start to have more voices like Doan and Batra, and outside ones from other cities, to introduce a new set of ideas.
This article featured additional research from Market Urbanist content staffer Ethan Finlan.
More on Market Urbanist can be found here.
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