☆ SJ's homeless study session excludes alternate views
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SJ City hosts another panel aiming to solve the city’s housing and homelessness crisis. Another echo chamber ensues. Scott Beyer of the Market Urbanism Report explores how City staff privileges consideration of failed, costly programs that advantage favored non profits and systemically shut out public deliberation of more effective, market-proven solutions. An Opp Now exclusive.
Homelessness levels in San Jose and California as a whole, despite recent progress, remain astronomical. The state has the nation’s largest homeless population, and the rate in San Jose rose 3% from 2019 to 2022, despite much public spending. In 2023, the city declared a homelessness emergency, giving city hall vaguely-defined powers to streamline solutions. This past March, city council convened a 3+ hour “study session” - “Homelessness Crisis in San Jose” - to discuss approaches. Like previous panels it’s held on housing, this was mostly an echo chamber to reinforce the pro-government status quo that’s already proven ineffective.
The current state of housing affordability and homelessness remains bleak in San Jose. Recent estimates find that 6,650 residents are homeless. San Jose set a goal to address this by building 10,000 “affordable” units and 25,000 overall by 2023, a goal it’s woefully short of: the city permitted just 1,671 units in 2021. According to Zillow, median home prices are $1.25 million in early 2024. Beyond supply, the “chronic homelessness” levels - numbers of people homeless for over a year - jumped 22% in recent years.
The panel included government officials and reps from the non-profit affordable housing industry. Santa Clara County Housing Authority executive director Preston Prince argued that more support from Washington was needed. He stressed, for example, that there was insufficient funding for the Housing Choice Voucher (often called Section 8).
“There has not been a substantial increase in the voucher program in decades,” Prince said, noting that clearing the existing request backlog would take 35 years.
Consuelo Hernandez, director of Santa Clara County’s Office of Supportive Housing, mentioned a 44% local increase of units (where, exactly, was unclear), suggesting that this signaled progress. Ragan Henninger, the city’s Deputy Director of Housing, argued strongly in favor of a “Housing First” approach that prioritizes getting the homeless into supportive housing, without stipulation.
“There is a mountain of evidence that says Housing First, without any unnecessary hoops or requirements, is what is most successful,” she said.
Other panelists included Jennifer Loving, CEO of local homeless-prevention non-profit Destination HOME; Paul Simpson, CFO of shelter and counseling network LifeMoves; and Gabrielle Lopez with the non-profit HomeFirst. Also speaking were two homeless San Jose residents and the city’s Parks director.
Already, the flaws of this panel should be apparent: people who work in government and homeless service non-profits have a financial conflict of interest. Naturally, they'll want more funding for their own programs (some of them said as much during the panel) while hesitating to question the effectiveness of funds already spent.
It also meant the discussion obscured two elephants in the room: the city’s underproduction of housing and the multifaceted causes of homelessness. Acknowledging such realities beforehand would have inspired the city to field a more intellectually diverse panel.
One voice that would’ve been worth hearing regards something the city has actually done right on homelessness: “tiny homes”. San Jose rolled out a pilot program for this, and it proved to have much lower costs than previous homeless housing in San Jose. If the city were to expand this program, it might find a scalable solution for homelessness. The city could’ve invited to this panel officials who oversaw that program, or a modular home manufacturer, whose presence would help keep council current on best practices. Pallet Shelter, based in Washington state, is one company that builds modular homeless units nationwide, and there are other builders who frequently speak or write about the homeless issue.
Another problem with San Jose’s current approach is that it overlooks many of homelessness’ root causes. A large share of this population ends up on the streets due to drug issues. The Substance Use and Mental Health Services Administration estimates that this is a problem for around 35% of America’s homeless population - a figure that frankly seems conservative compared to the visible reality.
The Independent Institute, an Oakland-based libertarian think tank, argues that the substance abuse aspect can be addressed through different rehousing strategies. In a recent report called Beyond Homeless (which I co-authored), the think tank skewers California’s “housing first” strategy.
Adam Summers, one of the authors, notes that while the housing first approach has had some success, homelessness has grown substantially while it has been the national standard, and that data favorable to Housing First programs are often incomplete or produced by researchers with conflicts of interest. Such housing, he and others in the report argue, also creates disincentives for individuals to reform the behavior that made them homeless, since they’re being given housing before being made to change their habits.
Summers and myself wrote that before Housing First came in vogue, a “transitional housing” approach was common. That model pairs shelter for the homeless with mandatory treatment programs and job training. Many such transitional models exist nationwide and often have great track records of bringing people into full sobriety and off government support.
It would have been great to invite to this panel a transitional housing provider, or at very least, an Independent Institute contributor (again, they’re just up the road) whose research takes a critical view of Housing First orthodoxy.
A discussion of why housing is so expensive in San Jose also would have benefitted the panel - after all, homelessness is the symptom of a larger shortage.
All the programs and spending won’t keep shelter in reach if the price of housing is too high for local incomes. And that situation is caused by the city’s abysmal permitting record. A variety of intellectuals across the ideological spectrum now call for lifting regulations that keep these permit figures low. The most proximate ones are the various Yimby activists floating around the Bay Area, such as Sonja Trauss. She would have been forthright about this “build baby build” message in a way that panelists who work for or do business with the government can’t, given the politically-charged nature of YIMBYism.
San Jose’s current approach to homelessness isn’t making progress. That is because, for the most part, the city is trying the same things and expecting different results; and because there are no new ideas to challenge the old ones. But that latter issue just boils down to who gets invited to speak at the table.
This article featured additional research from Market Urbanist content staffer Ethan Finlan.
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