Dear Neighbor, During my first two years in office, we held our city accountable for building out our shelter system to help homeless neighbors come indoors. This year, we’re opening up enough units to double our capacity. Last week, alongside our police and fire unions, I announced a new initiative as part of our budget process to create accountability for using that shelter. If someone is repeatedly unable or unwilling to accept a very low-barrier (e.g. partners, pets, and possessions are allowed; sobriety is not a strict requirement; there is no deadline for leaving) and safe, private space with supportive services, the city has used all of the tools at our disposal. At this stage, after three refusals of shelter, we have a responsibility to get the person into the care of the county and often (and sadly in California) our best tool for doing so is pressing charges for trespassing. The magistrates who oversee our behavioral health courts can then determine a better path forward and attempt to interrupt the cycle that is preventing this person from coming indoors. This isn’t about being punitive; it’s about getting everyone indoors and connected to support. Leaving people to live and — over 200 times each year in our county — die on our streets, often when they are too deep in the throes of addiction or mental health crisis to make a rational decision about their own self-care is neither humane, progressive nor practical. It’s also not fair to the neighborhood. We as a Council have made a promise to you – the people we represent. We’ve promised that when you accept a solution to homelessness in your neighborhood you will see the effects of that solution. We promised to effectively end homelessness in the immediate vicinity of our interim housing sites. This is not only good for the neighborhood at large, it’s also good for the new residents moving indoors to avoid temptations that exist on the streets. But we can’t do that if people repeatedly refuse to come indoors. We should not allow homelessness to be a choice in San Jose. Read more about this proposal here. But it’s not just our homeless neighbors we need to hold accountable. Last Monday, I asked that we hold ourselves – the decision-makers and top city leaders – accountable for results. Results on the issues that matter most to our residents. Because if we aren’t making progress, we shouldn’t be getting pay raises on top of our automatic annual cost-of-living increases. Over the past two years, thanks to you, we’ve achieved focus. We’ve gone from over 40 priorities to your top 4. We’ve established dashboards to track our progress across these 4 priorities so you can see exactly what’s working and what’s not. Now, if the Council approves my March Budget Message, this year will be about execution. It’ll be about accountability. It’ll be about iterating on and improving our strategies to ensure that we’re using our limited tax dollars in the most efficient ways possible. And I want to thank our Vice Mayor Pam Foley for standing strong behind this message of accountability. Read more about it here. Unfortunately, we’re already seeing pushback from other members of the council. It may not come as a surprise to you that not all of my colleagues seem to want their pay raises tied to results. They believe we need to “study” what this means and have our understaffed City Manager write reports to come back in 6 months before we can consider this proposal. They want to take our two acts of accountability (“Responsibility to Shelter” and “Pay for Performance”) out of the budget message entirely and instead pursue something that politicians are really good at – death by committee. They want to kill these proposals by making the case for ever more process and bureaucracy. You can read their memo in full right here. These policies are simple – you don’t get a pay raise if you don’t show progress. If you’re offered safe and dignified shelter, you need to come indoors. These policies are part of the reason you elected me to be your Mayor. I ran on both and we already effectively had a citywide referendum on both, so I will not back down on either. But I’ll need your help. Will you join me at City Council this week to speak in support of our budget message? Will you speak out for accountability? |
| I look forward to hearing from you. And I know our council needs to hear from you – needs to be held accountable by you, the people who elected them to make San Jose safer, cleaner and better for everyone. Let’s pass this budget! |
| Sincerely, |
| Mayor Matt |