"After a year of living out of her car in San Jose's Columbus Park, where rats had so overrun the city's largest homeless encampment that residents gave them names, Tami Davis wasn't expecting to be relocated to a boutique hotel with crystal chandeliers, maid service and TVs in every room. "It's almost too fancy," said Davis, 61, said of the Bristol Hotel, where a mobile laundry service comes by once a week, Goodwill Industries knocks on doors offering jobs for $18 an hour"
"Davis is among 256 of the 370 Columbus Park residents who took up the city's offer in August to leave the encampment and move into one of five newly-leased motels, three modular home projects or a short-term, safe sleeping tent village. Where they all landed and how they are acclimating - and how neighbors are reacting - is a test of Mayor Matt Mahan's ambitious and controversial effort to tackle homelessness in San Jose."
"By shifting millions of housing dollars in voter-approved Measure E funds from permanent housing projects to interim housing options, Mahan has riled some "Housing First" homeless advocates who want the focus to remain on long-term solutions. But nearly four months after clearing the city's vast and most troubled encampment and offering shelter to everyone there, the mayor insists his strategy is paying off."
San Jose relocated 256 of 370 Columbus Park residents into motels, modular home projects and a tent village, offering services like laundry, job outreach and veterinary care. The city cleared its largest encampment and redirected Measure E funds from permanent housing to interim options, provoking criticism from Housing First advocates who prefer long-term solutions. Mayor Matt Mahan frames the strategy as stabilizing people in private rooms with services and aims to have half of the city's homeless population indoors once new modular homes are filled. The approach has prompted neighborhood reactions and serves as a high-profile policy test.
Read at The Mercury News
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