At long last, on 6.11, San Jose City Council reallocated Measure E tax funds to prioritize interim housing and creekside clean-up. This move returned Measure E’s outlays to their original intent–addressing housing and homelessness issues in a balanced way. Just as important, it put an end to years of burning through 75% of the Measure’s annual proceeds on monumentally expensive, slow, and ineffective so-called “affordable” and permanent supportive housing.  The Opp Now team analyzes, in this exclusive.

For the last 3+ years, SJ’s Measure E funds have gone disproportionately (75%) toward what is increasingly understood as a deeply misguided, unsustainable, and poorly-managed approach to housing and homelessness.  It’s known as Housing First, and it’s characterized by building new, brutally expensive (up to $1m/door)  subsidized housing that will be managed by regional non profits. 

The results of this approach are painfully–and to many, predictably–clear: local housing prices remain sky-high and homelessness numbers continue to increase.

In a word: failure.

So it was with much relief to many homeless advocates and residents from across the political spectrum that Mayor Mahan was able to corral a unanimous Council into finally returning Measure E’s spend to its original intent: a balanced, multi-pronged effort that does not disadvantage quick-build, cost-effective, and highly equitable housing solutions such as temporary, congregate, and interim shelters. 

But Mahan’s victory begs obvious questions:

Why did it take so long to make the businesslike change? What led the Council to act for years as though local Housing Firsters had some bizarre birthright to Measure E funds?

The answer may lie in the exorbitant influence and power the local Housing Industrial Complex–and by that we mean local housing non profits and advocates (often funded by the city)–has had over City Hall and staff in previous administrations. 

Consider the following:

• The previous SJ Housing Director, Jackey Morales-Ferrand, actually sat on the board of one of the biggest regional housing non profits and one of the largest recipients of taxpayer largesse–Destination: Home. Conflict of interest, anyone? 
• There is a long history of “revolving door” relationships of Housing Department staff working for non profits after they leave the city, and vice versa.
• Despite much public outcry, City staff has privileged local non profits in the creation of city proposals and housing plans, stiff-arming housing providers and neighborhoods, in particular. 
• City staff has refused to let housing experts and advocates who disagree with their Housing First orthodoxy to even get a voice in City Hall discussion and study sessions, instead privileging favored non profits.
• These same non profits, largely funded by the city, have turned around and used their resources to lobby the city aggressively for strategies and policies that result in greater funding for those same non profits.  {Editor’s note: these non profits are rarely registered as lobbyists}. This has led to mountains of mis- and dis-information emanating from these non profits’ spokespeople in their public debate on the issues. 

Simply put, these non profits have been habituated to receiving guaranteed taxpayer monies with no accountability strings. 

Most serious business and financial experts agree that the Measure E funding allocations should be flexible, and viewed freshly on an annual basis, so council can pivot to address changing priorities in a fluid environment. The Housing Industrial Complex chose to argue that it had some sort of ownership of the Measure E funding, and worked to encase that ownership in amber–trying to lock in 75% of Measure E funding for their schemes in perpetuity. 

Tuesday’s vote rejected that effort, and put the city’s housing, homeless, and Measure E strategy back onto a more balanced and businesslike footing. 

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