A meeting of California residents turned sour this week, with residents shouting at their Democratic Mayor Matt Mahan, who wants to build a semi-permanent homeless camp near their multimillion-dollar homes.
Mahan, a former technology entrepreneur, smiled uncomfortably at the San Jose community forum Wednesday night, as homeowners chorused “No” when he suggested erecting tents on paved land donated by a construction company. public services.
Homes near the proposed site, on Willow Street and Lelong Street, are worth millions. A newly constructed five-bedroom apartment with porcelain kitchen counters and hardwood floors is on the market for $3.6 million.
The tensions in San Jose epitomize California’s housing crisis, with some 180,000 homeless people posing a growing problem for liberal-leaning residents who worry about the falling value of their valuable assets.
Democratic San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan has struggled to convince residents of his plan to create a safe homeless camp in their neighborhood.
Dozens of residents came to the meeting and heckled Mahan when he touted his camp plan.
At the meeting, Mahan pleaded with residents to let him make the makeshift homeless encampment more permanent and safer, by erecting tents on a paved area, with security patrols to prevent drugs and crime.
“We can take the area across the street that is the paved Valley Water lot, we can create a safe sleeping site,” Mahan said.
The mayor assured the angry crowd that he would have “some rules, with tents lined up with trash pickup, with some level of security and case management.”
Relocating homeless people to a “managed” site would make it possible to fight against “noise, drugs, crime” and other scourges of which they complain, he insisted.
“You have to give us a choice about where people go.”
But the locals didn’t believe it.
Mahan smiled awkwardly as they shouted his plan, insisting that any camp would have to be built elsewhere.
“I don’t see how moving this same group to the other side and suddenly managing it is going to suddenly change all of these people or change the environment,” one speaker said.
San Jose resident Kathleen Almoslino advocated on behalf of residents in her Willow Glen neighborhood.
“I think our city needs to sue the county,” Almoslino told ABC.
Resident Kathleen Almoslinosa said she wants homeless people to be moved ‘elsewhere’
Mayor wants to turn makeshift homeless camp into something safer and more permanent
The planned site would include “tents aligned with trash collection, with some level of security and case management,” the mayor said.
“I think the county needs to do its job and … find unincorporated property somewhere else — not right in the middle of neighborhoods.”
The mayor has even faced backlash from local homeless support groups, who say forcing unhoused people to occupy the same space is problematic because many have grievances with others that could lead to violence.
The dispute in San Jose comes as California grapples with a homeless and vagrancy crisis.
Homelessness jumped 6 percent to more than 180,000 people in California last year, according to federal data.
Since 2013, these numbers have exploded by 53 percent.
Nearly 28 percent of the nation’s unhoused population is in the Golden State.
This month, auditors denounced California’s failed attempts to solve the problem.
The state spent $24 billion to combat homelessness over five years, but did not determine whether that money was helping the growing number of unhoused people, according to their damning report.
San Jose properties near planned homeless camp frequently change hands for more than $3 million
He criticized the state’s homeless czars for spending billions on 30 programs between 2018 and 2023, but collected no data on why the money failed to fight crisis.
It confirmed what is clear to many residents: The homeless crisis is out of control, and tent encampments and bothersome vagrancy in big cities are bad and getting worse.
More than two-thirds of American adults say homelessness is out of control and that authorities need to move those sleeping rough into tent encampments outside cities, according to a recent DailyMail.com/TIPP poll .
Our survey found that 67 percent of Americans are fed up with the country’s growing number of homeless people and want mayors to take drastic action to combat it.
More than 650,000 people were counted as homeless by the federal government in its annual snapshot for 2023, released in January, an increase of 12% from the previous year.
Authorities in Portland, Los Angeles, Las Vegas and other cities have responded in recent months to public anger over the homeless by dismantling makeshift shelters and moving people.
More than two-thirds of Americans say homelessness, which increased 12 percent last year, is out of control.
Scenes of homeless drug addicts stumbling on sidewalks and fears of violence and petty crime have become a national political issue, with former President Donald Trump making it part of his campaign platform.
In a video about homelessness released by his campaign, Trump said “hard-working, law-abiding citizens” were being pushed aside and forced to “suffer for the whims of a deeply ill few.”
He pledged to “ban urban camping” and create “tent cities” on “cheap land” for the homeless, staffed with doctors and social workers to help people address systemic problems .
Yet homeless people and their advocates say sweep and relocation policies are cruel and a waste of taxpayer dollars. The answer, they say, lies in more affordable housing, not repression.
Our survey of 1,401 adults, however, found that tough policy resonated with many voters across the United States – with more than two-thirds saying they favor resettlement camps.
Democratic-leaning respondents were more likely to resettle unhoused people. Fully 74 percent of them wanted the homeless to leave, compared to 64 percent of Republicans and 62 percent of independents.
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