San Jose mayor says there could be consequences if an unhoused person refuses help
On Thursday, San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan explained the implementation of his plans to crack down on homelessness in the city.
"Not about criminalizing homelessness, it's about intervening when we're offering a solution to homelessness that is repeatedly being refused," Mahan said.
His vision is to create what he calls, neighborhood quality of life teams, that include outreach staff and police officers. They will frequent the homeless encampment sites and offer those unhoused with resources and opportunities to move into shelter.
"An expectation that if you are offered safe and dignified shelter and housing, that you will accept it," he said.
However, if the person does not accept the resources, Mahan said there could be consequences, and that police could take them behind bars. But he said the teams will ensure that it does not get to that point.
"We'll have outreach going to encampment early, repeatedly. It's all about relationship building," the mayor said.
Mahan added that his number one priority is to rid the city of homeless encampments.
The city is now working to update municipal codes, specifically on violent and nonviolent misdemeanors at the encampment zones.
The mayor clarified that if the person is charged with a violent misdemeanor, they will be sent to jail. However, for nonviolent misdemeanors, it could be a different outcome.
"We might be able to instruct our officers, for nonviolent misdemeanors, to bring the person, not to be booked in county jail but to go to a place for rehabilitation," Mahan said.
However, for one community leader, he called the mayor's plan "problematic."
"It's not okay for us to try to criminalize their experience and activities, providing citations, having law enforcement sending messages to people, is not only cruel and inhumane," Poncho Guevara, the executive director of Sacred Heart Community Service, told CBS News Bay Area.
"It's just a way of moving the problem around and causing greater harm to the people rather than helping people with a situation that our society needs to be able to work on together," he added.
The nonprofit organization has been serving the community for more than six decades in San Jose. Guevara said the demand for resources is greater than ever, especially in the unhoused population.
Officials said there are approximately five thousand unhoused individuals in the city.
"We need to be building a lot more housing, and really focusing on public policy solutions and resources to prevent homelessness, not trying to just move the problem around," Guevara said.
While Mahan pointed out his optimism for providing 1,400 more beds that will be available in shelters this calendar year, Guevara said it's not a long-term solution.
"Those are temporary shelter units. They're not permanent, they're not going to permanently solve the problem. They can stay there for a few months, and then they'll have to leave," Guevara said.
Meanwhile, the mayor's team will be bringing the plan to city council's budget study session on Monday.
Guevara hopes that the city will focus on the bigger picture.
"Preventing people from entering homelessness, building permanent housing, that's what we need. Not citing people in order to traumatize them, putting them into the criminal justice system that makes it harder for them to get a job or get an apartment," Guevara said.
The city is about five weeks away from the final budget vote, and Mahan said they are fully expecting to make adjustments to the plan in the coming weeks.