☆ Santa Clara County Association of Realtors (SCCAOR) backs Doan/Batra call for City of SJ homeless audit
Continuing the bipartisan support for the proposed audit of SJ's homelessness expenditures, SCCAOR Gov't Affairs Director Gina Zari urges much greater transparency, accountability, and effectiveness in how the city addresses its homelessness crisis--which is clearly the #1 issue for residents. An Opp Now exclusive.
Last month's California Joint Legislative Audit Committee report on San Jose's homelessness spending is cause for great concern for San Jose taxpayers. It found that San Jose cannot ensure that the $302 million that was supposed to be spent addressing the homelessness crisis over the past three years was actually spent alleviating homelessness.
According to the report, San Jose lacks "the information necessary to easily assess the effectiveness of its homelessness spending" because it does not possess the information necessary to determine how the money was actually spent. The report stated that homelessness spending in San Jose lacked transparency and accountability.
The audit report is an absolute gut punch to housing organizations, such as ours, that know first-hand how challenging it is to get first-time homebuyers into homes in this market. Our members fight to help their clients secure funds that can get them into their first home; through downpayment assistance programs, first-time homebuyer programs, and grants that help with closing costs. Learning that over $300 million in housing dollars that was supposed to be spent alleviating homelessness cannot be properly accounted for is extremely disturbing.
Over the past two years, survey after survey of San Jose residents has shown that homelessness continues to be the most important issue facing the City. It is disgraceful that taxpayer money intended to provide shelter for the most vulnerable people in our City was not more carefully accounted for and safeguarded.
We commend Senator Dave Cortese, who called for the State's Joint Legislative Audit Committee to investigate how San Jose has spent its money on homelessness and we thank Councilmembers Bien Doan and Arjun Batra for calling for a comprehensive internal audit of San Jose's homelessness spending.
Given the results of the State's audit, the City must now conduct a comprehensive internal audit of its homelessness spending. In addition, San Jose needs to abide by the additional recommendations outlined in the audit report by September -
- publicly report all homelessness spending
- draft a homelessness response plan
- monitor the performance of nonprofit service providers
The internal audit that San Jose conducts will determine how the money was actually spent and how much of the $302 million was misspent. It will allow us to ensure that taxpayer money designated to alleviate homelessness is never again wasted.
Kind Regards,
Gina Zari
Director of Government Affairs
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