By: Kat Littfin

Local Editor

Recently, San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan has received backlash from the San Jose community and Santa Clara county leaders for his proposal to criminalize the homeless. According to NBC Bay Area, San Jose has the fourth-largest homeless population in the nation as of 2023. As a result, some citizens have advocated for change; however, even those who want change view Mahan’s response as extreme and immoral.

Mahan was appointed mayor in 2023, previously serving as the District 10 councilmember. Before his government involvement, Mahan was the CEO of tech company Brigade Media. Although he is a Democrat, Mahan has often opposed policies encouraged by other Democratic leaders, promoting higher policing and aggressively addressing the crime rates in San Jose. Unlike many liberal leaders, he supported California’s Proposition 36, which would heighten sentences for repeated minor drug and theft crimes.

San Jose, along with several other major cities in the Bay Area, has a high number of homeless residents. San Jose has about 363 homeless people for every 100,000 people per capita and falls just behind Los Angeles in the rankings of cities with the largest homeless population. Several issues contribute to these extreme statistics, including the high costs of housing and renting in Silicon Valley and unsuccessful attempts to aid and shelter the homeless. Todd Langton, the founder of a non-profit organization that helps the homeless in Silicon Valley, stated, “The county’s and the city’s approach is extremely dysfunctional…In Santa Clara County, you have hundreds of different silos of agencies and nonprofits, working separately from each other without any oversight.” Langton advocates for a way to aid San Jose’s homelessness crisis previously modeled by the city government of Houston, Texas: building permanent housing rather than shelters and subsidizing rent.

Mayor Mahan, however, has proposed a plan that varies significantly from Houston’s approach. Rather than providing more housing for the homeless, Mahan has suggested that San Jose arrest homeless residents who refuse shelter. Although it seems counterintuitive that the homeless would refuse shelter, there are many drawbacks regarding the housing and shelter system in San Jose and in general. Many individuals avoid shelters because of their possibly unsafe environments and past issues with such spaces. Shelters also have many rules regarding their residents, forcing some families to separate and enforcing curfews that make it difficult for individuals to work certain jobs. Mahan’s approach has also garnered negative attention as it can be impractical and costly. Imprisoning possibly hundreds of homeless people could be a waste of taxpayer money and a great cost to the city. The Santa Clara County District Attorney’s office has responded with trepidation towards Mahan’s proposal, stating that it could be ineffective and serve as a distraction from the issue of homelessness in San Jose rather than as a solution.

(Sources: Mercury News, NBC Bay Area, Wikipedia)