San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan hosted several gubernatorial candidates at a tiny home site Friday, in the hopes of showcasing the city’s approach to slash homelessness through building temporary housing — and to get their buy in.
During a tour of the city’s newest tiny home village at Cherry Avenue, Mahan said he’s looking for the next California governor to share his outlook in reducing unsheltered homelessness, addressing addiction and reducing crime — but he has yet to find the right candidate.
“I want a candidate who’s a bold change agent, who on public safety, on homelessness, on addiction and mental illness, is going to get back to basics and be far more pragmatic than we’ve been,” Mahan said. “I want to find, and have not yet found (someone). But it’s still early, and I’m getting to know the candidates.”
Former Rep. Katie Porter, former state Controller Betty Yee, former Assemblymember Ian Calderon, Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond and billionaire Tom Steyer joined Mahan on the tour of the tiny home village, built on Valley Water land. Mahan said temporary shelter is the quickest way to get homeless people off the streets, and explained the need for more sober living environments and how the city needs more continued support from the state — which has zeroed out its funding to address homelessness this year.
San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan speaks with candidates running for California governor on Dec. 5, 2025. Left to right: Mahan, former state Controller Betty Yee, former Assemblymember Ian Calderon, former Rep. Katie Porter and billionaire Tom Steyer. Photo by Joyce Chu.
Porter aligns with Mahan’s focus on temporary housing as a strategy to tackle homelessness. According to a survey released Thursday by Inside California Politics and Emerson College Polling, Porter and Rep. Eric Swalwell are the top two Democratic candidates for next year’s race for governor.
“I think what we need to be doing is getting people who are unsheltered living on the streets into interim housing, and ultimately preventing people from being unsheltered at all,” Porter said. “Once people are living on the streets, there’s a lot of trauma, there’s risk of having crimes committed against you or assaults. The risk of substance use goes up. So moving people quickly into interim housing is really important, and also trying to prevent people from losing housing in the first place.”
Yee, another Democratic candidate, said she would ensure state funding through the Homelessness Housing, Assistance and Prevention Program (HHAP) would be ongoing if she becomes governor. HHAP funding can be used toward homelessness prevention, rental assistance, temporary and permanent housing, outreach, services and shelter improvements.
“I’m going to be looking at how we can get HHAP funding to be a permanent source for the state,” Yee told San José Spotlight. “I do want to look at how we can scale (tiny homes) up. I think a lot of local governments have been really hungry … to bring people (indoors).”
Due to the city having no HHAP dollars this fiscal year, San Jose will lose about 550 beds and spaces in temporary homeless housing if it doesn’t find other sources of funding, Housing Director Erik Soliván previously said. Because of the timing of when state dollars are distributed, the impact on the city won’t be felt until fiscal year 2026-27, resulting in a loss of about $30 million.
Porter said her priority is to get people off the streets as quickly as possible — and that permanent housing is expensive and takes a long time to build.
“We are going to have some people who are going to need that solution. But what I hear from people is they want to feel like we’re making progress,” Porter told San José Spotlight. “What I saw today is a way to move people from being unsheltered to being sheltered, from having no services or only emergency services, to having constant continued support.”
San Jose has been rapidly expanding its shelter beds as its primary strategy to reduce homelessness. The Cherry Avenue tiny home village is the 11th temporary housing site to open in San Jose this year. One more site is scheduled to open this year, the Cerone tiny home village. Once that is finished, San Jose will have added nearly 1,240 spaces for homeless people to stay temporarily — nearly tripling the city’s capacity from last year, according to city data.
San Jose has 6,503 homeless residents. Unsheltered homelessness in San Jose has dropped more than 1,000 people since 2022. Roughly 3,959 homeless residents are unsheltered, or about 60%, and 2,544 are sheltered, according to the latest point in time count conducted in January before the 11 sites opened. Still, the city has experienced a slight increase in its homeless population, up 237 people, from the last count in 2023.
Contact Joyce Chu at [email protected] or @joyce_speaks on X.