After a contentious and bitterly close election, one in which homelessness dominated voters’ minds, a new mayor came to power promising to deliver immediate results where previous administrations had fallen short. The newly-elected mayor launched a program aimed at moving people out of encampments and emergency shelters, with the goal of providing temporary housing to 4,000 previously unhoused residents within their first 100 days in office, greatly accelerating the city’s previously approved plans.
Now that vision and leadership is bearing results, as the mayor recently announced the city is on track to meet those ambitious goals.
If you thought this was a story about San Jose and its newly-elected mayor, you would be wrong. The city in question? Los Angeles, where Mayor Karen Bass has taken bold and immediate action to reduce street homelessness.
San Jose’s new mayor, Matt Mahan, has similarly promised to complete 1,000 interim homes for the unhoused, but by year’s end rather than within his first 100 days. In fact, it was the centerpiece of his candidate platform to address homelessness. Rather than accelerating or expanding the city’s previously held plans or launching his own bold new initiative, however, Mayor Mahan’s promise was simply to finish his predecessor’s work on this issue.
Even at that, Matt Mahan is on track to fail.
In San Jose this week, city staff announced it would be impossible to meet Mahan’s target, not just within his first year, but within his first term. Mahan called the lack of urgency unfortunate.
Rather than a tale of two cities, this really tells the tale of two mayors – one who understands the power of leadership, and one who does not; of a mayor who can rally others around their vision and achieve tangible results, and one who cannot.
It’s time for Mayor Mahan to propose real solutions to San Jose’s homelessness issue. The lack of urgency he cites lies within him and his administration, as other mayors have set clear, realistic targets and implemented programs and targeted resources in order to achieve results.
In Los Angeles, we have seen that progress on homelessness is possible given political will and strong leadership.
In San Jose, meanwhile, we are seeing what happens when a big city mayor struggles to understand the power of his own office to steer the city’s agenda. The thousands of unhoused residents sleeping on the streets and in encampments in San Jose tonight surely will find no comfort in Mahan’s expressions of disappointment when real leadership is their only hope of escape.
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