{"id":228708,"date":"2026-03-20T15:59:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-20T15:59:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/228708\/"},"modified":"2026-03-20T15:59:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-20T15:59:08","slug":"will-matt-mahans-solutions-to-homelessness-work-for-california","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/228708\/","title":{"rendered":"Will Matt Mahan’s solutions to homelessness work for California?"},"content":{"rendered":"

If San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan becomes California\u2019s next governor<\/a>, policy experts say some homeless solutions he has implemented in Silicon Valley\u2019s largest city could work \u2014 but others may fall flat.<\/p>\n

Mahan has scaled up production of tiny homes, more than doubling<\/a> the number of beds it operates last year to get people off the streets. He\u2019s advocated for more state funding<\/a> to address homelessness and called on Santa Clara County to increase its share of services<\/a>. He\u2019s upped encampment sweeps<\/a> and slashed red tape in shelter production by declaring a homelessness crisis<\/a>, and wants that to happen statewide. And he\u2019s indicated he\u2019s going to protect and expand federal Section 8 housing vouchers \u2014 though how he intends to do so is unclear.<\/p>\n

When it comes to making tiny homes and interim housing the primary solution to solve homelessness, how that plays out largely depends on each city, according to Ryan Finnigan, deputy director of research for the Terner Center for Housing Innovation at University of California, Berkeley.<\/p>\n

\u201cSan Jose was successful because they\u2019ve kind of had an all hands on deck approach between the city, the service providers and philanthropy \u2014 and even the water district donating land for interim housing,\u201d Finnigan told San Jos\u00e9 Spotlight. \u201c(At the state level) you can provide the resources, and there\u2019s some amount of streamlining that you can provide to make interim housing sites easier to permit, but you still have to have that recipe of the local folks coming together.\u201d<\/p>\n

Elizabeth Funk, CEO of DignityMoves, said Mahan\u2019s strategy of building out temporary shelters is necessary to keep the crisis from getting worse.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think if we get everybody indoors, it takes the pressure off the system,\u201d Funk told San Jos\u00e9 Spotlight. \u201cBut we first got to stop the devastation, and then we can build permanent housing that we need in a time frame\u00a0that is realistic.\u201d<\/p>\n

Funk, who has worked closely with Mahan to build multiple tiny homes sites in San Jose and helped author several state bills, said there are several issues Mahan has been pushing as mayor that he would likely work to change if he becomes governor. One of those is making more state funding available to address homelessness and more flexible funding that wouldn\u2019t be required just for permanent housing, she said.<\/p>\n

This fiscal year, the state has zeroed out<\/a> its main source of homelessness funding \u2014 the Homelessness Housing, Assistance and Prevention Program. The funding<\/a> can be used toward homelessness prevention, rental assistance, temporary and permanent housing, outreach, services and shelter improvements. San Jose has largely spent the money on funding temporary shelter operations.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of our programs have now declared that unsheltered homelessness is the top priority, and yet the funding hasn\u2019t caught up, and that\u2019s going to be something he\u2019s going to address,\u201d Funk said.<\/p>\n

Mahan\u2019s gubernatorial campaign spokesperson did not respond to multiple requests for comment.<\/p>\n

While temporary shelter may solve the problem of people living on the streets, it won\u2019t solve homelessness at its root cause \u2014 the lack of affordable permanent housing. That isn\u2019t being addressed, Benjamin Henwood, director of University of Southern California\u2019s Homelessness Policy Research Institute, said.<\/p>\n

In the 1980s, U.S. Housing and Urban Development began to slash its investments in low-income housing under President Ronald Reagan. Experts point to this time as the start of what has led to a significant shortfall of affordable homes.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no solution to homelessness without increasing the availability of affordable housing,\u201d Henwood told San Jos\u00e9 Spotlight. \u201cMaybe these tiny homes are preferable to living on the streets, but it\u2019s not clear if that will be true over the long term, and whether or not people will eventually leave those communities. What\u2019s the long-term plan here?\u201d<\/p>\n

The sustainability of Mahan\u2019s tiny home plans is also coming under scrutiny, with advocates questioning the effectiveness of these sites after recent reports of poor management <\/a>\u00a0across multiple locations.<\/p>\n

When it comes to being more efficient and fast-tracking shelter production, experts agree it\u2019s necessary to address the homelessness crisis.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is helpful to cut through the\u00a0red tape that allows shelter programs to come together faster, but the local communities still have to be the ones that put up the land and the money in the first place for those sites to become reality,\u201d Finnigan said.<\/p>\n

\"In-line
<\/a><\/p>\n

In terms of how Mahan could expand Section 8 voucher programs, as stated<\/a> on his housing platform<\/a>, that can only be done at the congressional level since it is a federal program, Henwood said.<\/p>\n

Section 8 vouchers are underfunded, with only one quarter<\/a> of qualifying households receiving it. Others languish on housing voucher waitlists for years. Henwood said there hasn\u2019t been broad consensus on this issue. Subsidized housing is not viewed in the same way as Medi-Cal and food aid needs.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can obviously afford it,\u201d Henwood said. \u201cI just think as a society, we haven\u2019t said, \u2018Yes, we believe that.’\u201d<\/p>\n

Contact Joyce Chu at [email\u00a0protected]<\/a> or @joyce_speaks on X.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan becomes California\u2019s next governor, policy experts say some homeless solutions he has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":172087,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[712,35072,4421,88,90,89],"class_list":{"0":"post-228708","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-jose","8":"tag-centerpiece","9":"tag-election-2026","10":"tag-matt-mahan","11":"tag-san-jose","12":"tag-san-jose-headlines","13":"tag-san-jose-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=228708"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228708\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/172087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=228708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=228708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=228708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}