San José Mayor Announces Launch of City Housing and Homelessness Program Dashboard to Improve Transparency
San José Mayor Announces Launch of City Housing and Homelessness Program Dashboard to Improve Transparency
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 7, 2023
Media Contact:
Tasha Dean, Chief Communications Officer, Office of Mayor Matt Mahan, [email protected]
SAN JOSÉ, CA - Today, Mayor Matt Mahan announced the launch of a new dashboard on the City’s website showcasing San José’s homelessness programs and funding. The dashboard was created so the public, policymakers, oversight agencies, non-profit partners, and the media have easy access to data, various funding sources, expenditures, outcomes of San José’s direct spending on permanent and transitional housing, emergency shelter, homelessness prevention, and related services to improve transparency and understanding of how public money is being spent. Mayor Mahan first proposed the dashboard while he was a Councilmember in District 10, in December 2022, along with former Mayor Sam Liccardo, former Vice Mayor Chappie Jones (D1), and current Councilmember David Cohen (D4).
“We can’t expect to solve our residents’ most pressing problems if City Hall isn’t measuring the results of our work.,” said San José Mayor Matt Mahan. “This is an important step towards the real-time, fully transparent data that policymakers and residents need to see in order to track our progress in reducing the level of street homelessness in San José.”
Homelessness is the crisis of our generation. San José continues to deploy rapid and innovative solutions to solve homelessness, and recently reversed a decade-long trend of increasing unsheltered homelessness as seen through the most recent Point-in-Time (PIT) count.
San José has increased its stock of emergency-interim housing communities and deployed other successful re-housing efforts including a hotel/motel voucher program, bridge housing safe-parking, rental assistance, and more. However, despite all of these solutions more needs to be done to bring all of our most vulnerable residents off the streets.
“As a city, we have heard loud and clear that effective action and greater transparency is needed regarding our homelessness crisis,” City Manager Jennifer Maguire noted. “Although this is the first iteration of the dashboard, it will continuously evolve to incorporate feedback.”
The dashboard will be updated regularly and focus on outcomes such as the number of people the City has served, how they received resources, and how many have stayed housed. The dashboard will continue to evolve through public input, new funding sources, and new results on the City’s efforts.
Highlights from the current dashboard showcase in FY21-22:
2483 individuals were prevented from becoming homeless by the Homeless Prevention System
6125 individuals sheltered in Emergency Shelters or Interim Housing
4824 individuals were placed into permanent housing
“The data also reveals that 98% of people who received prevention services and 96% of those who moved into permanent supportive housing remained in their homes after twelve months – powerful evidence that these interventions work,” said Omar Passons, Deputy City Manager, who was hired in June of 2022 as part of the City’s increased focus on an enterprise-wide approach to the homelessness crisis. “Yet, we know that people are suffering and struggling on the streets and the City is pushing to engage additional solutions to limit that suffering, create access to hygiene and supportive services together with our regional partners, and improve the community for all residents.”
The dashboard is another tool for the public, officials, and other partners to positively tell the story of how dollars are being spent on homelessness, what outcomes they’re getting, and to better help policymakers, non-profits, and advocates allocate those dollars to get our neighbors off the street.
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The Big City Mayors is a coalition of Mayors across California’s 13 largest cities. Members include Mayors from Los Angeles, San Diego, San Jose, San Francisco, Fresno, Sacramento, Long Beach, Oakland, Bakersfield, Anaheim, Stockton, Riverside, and Irvine.