Last year, the state of California ordered San Jose to account for all of its homelessness spending and measure the success of its support programs. KALW’s Erin Bump has more on how the city’s fared.
San Jose has about four thousand unsheltered homeless residents living in spaces not meant for human habitation.
Nearly a year after the state audit deadline, San Jose has followed through on only two of the seven recommendations to improve its homelessness response.
The city successfully set annual goals for tackling homelessness and began monitoring the use of temporary housing.
Meanwhile, San Jose Spotlight reports that two other recommendations have been partially implemented. The first is reporting the city’s homeless finances. The second: measuring the effectiveness of public health and safety programs for unhoused residents.
But the Spotlight also reports that the state auditor has not made a ruling on whether San Jose set a goal for building permanent housing, improved demographic data collection and analysis, or tracked the performance of nonprofits that support the city’s unhoused population.
The city argues that it met all seven of the audit’s recommendations.
State legislators are considering holding a public hearing to discuss San Jose’s audit.
