Is SJ saying adieu to Housing First?

Is SJ's botched Housing Strategy finally reaching its expiration date? Local political commentary site surveys how candidates in this year's election are starting to break free from the monolithic model of slowly building expensive nonprofit new housing and trying out faster, cheaper, more flexible solutions.

San Jose’s housing fiasco has many parents–although most of the blame has to go to generations of misguided leadership at SJ’s Housing Dept and City Council. To his credit, outgoing Mayor Liccardo acknowledged in his State of the City address that SJ’s Housing strategy has been the city’s “biggest failure.” And the legacy of that failure is front and center in this year’s election season, many leading candidates are calling for substantial change to how the city approaches its housing crisis.

In a nutshell, SJ’s previous Housing First strategy–in which enormous resources were allocated to nonprofits to create overpriced and slow-to-build permanent new housing–is being ditched by 2022 candidates. They’re looking for a more flexible, cost-effective, quick-impact model that focuses on treatment for the homeless and much cheaper sheltering options.
But watch out: the architects of the discredited Permanent Housing First strategy are not ready to give up the ghost and admit culpability, despite the visible consensus against them. A recent neighborhood email post by an ex-SJ Housing Dept chief and nonprofit housing exec reveals that the flat-earthers are still among us and continue to peddle their discredited Housing First strategy with all sorts of disinformation and spin.

Here are the three biggest falsehoods offered in defense of Housing First:

1. SJ can’t afford a long-lasting, city-funded housing voucher program (a local Section 8). While it’s nice to see the Housing Firsters belatedly worry about money, they completely miss the point of the proposal. They say:

“It {the local voucher program} is a massive annual expenditure and one that the City (which must balance its budget unlike the federal government) cannot commit to budgeting in future years. That means that if there is no offramp {time limit} and the funds aren’t there for the long term that you are displacing people you temporarily housed back to the streets.”

This is upside-down thinking. The housing dollars are there–check out SJHD’s budget–it’s enormous:
Housing – Departmental Operations – General Fund: $538,773
Housing – Departmental Operations – Special Funds: $18,023,280
Housing Department Funds – Program Expenditures: $389,960,676
Community Development Block Grant Program: $27,462,336
Housing Total: $435,985,065
See here for a full HD budget breakdown:

But it’s terribly misallocated. Instead of spending those monies on hyper-expensive ($800k/unit) new housing (that will have to be subsidized and won’t be available for residents for up to ten years) why not put those monies to work right now with existing housing? Instead of spending the monies on building new housing, perhaps the monies could be spent on immediate housing relief.
I’m not saying this thesis is bulletproof, but I offer it as a thought experiment. Stay with me:
New units cost $800k to build.
The monthly rent for a studio apartment in SJ is $1700/month
That’s 470 months of local voucher rent
Or 39 years
Or 4 years for 10 people
Or 2 years for 20 people.
All for the cost of one unit maybe ten years from now. Even if this is only fractionally true, it would allow the market to focus on developing new housing where it can be done profitably, and over time release older and older housing for use as affordable local voucher housing.

Other potential sources of funding might include:
Community Development Block Grant Fund
Construction Tax & Property Conveyance Fund
General Purpose Parking Fund (Used to create a sanctioned RV/Car parking area for the homeless?)
Home Investment Partnership Program Trust Fund (“tenant-based assistance”)
Housing Trust Fund (Formerly called Housing & Homeless Fund)
Low & Moderate Income Housing Asset Fund
Multi-source Housing Fund
Hotel Tax Fund

And don’t forget that Measure E funds are a special carveout from the general fund. SJ City Council and Housing and Community Development Commission have the ultimate say on how Measure E funds are used. That accounts for $50M last year, $90M this year, and is projected at $65M/yr going forward.
The point is there’s lots of money that could fund a local voucher program, there is just not the political will to take money away from the Housing First/nonprofit housing agenda.

2. Temporary housing relief is bad because it won’t last forever.
The Housing Firsters make a logical mistake in asserting that temporary housing is a flawed idea because–at the termination of the temporary housing period–tenants will be asked to leave. This is “displacement.” And “displacement” is one of those progressive housing cabal words that’s supposed to end the conversation. Here’s what they say:

“That (time-based vouchers) means that if there is no offramp and the funds aren’t there for the long term that you are displacing people you temporarily housed back to the streets.”

This is hand-waving, not an argument. Two years of housing is better than 2 years in a car or along a creek bed. Three is even better. And 39 is a godsend. And in those two, three, five, or whatever years of stability, who knows what might change for the tenants–jobs, improved habits, and relationships, sobriety, maturity.
The extension of Housing Firsters’ argument underlines its absurdity: They basically are saying you should never house somebody temporarily unless you can guarantee they will never be asked to leave.

3. The Firsters’ weak argumentation blooms fully in their dismissal of sanctioned tent encampments for our homeless neighbors. They say:

“The idea of erecting massive homeless encampments in one to three locations in the city is just not workable. The cost would be enormous and would take away resources now going to provide permanent solutions.”

This comment gives the game away, as the Firsters reveal that they’re really just defending the permanent housing budget. But just as important, their argument is economically illiterate. It completely waves away the enormous cost we currently expend providing services to the homeless along creek beds (upwards of $50k/head/year), which likely would be much cheaper, more effective, and certainly more humane and compassionate in a centralized, organized model.

Read the whole thing here:

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