Perhaps the most controversial of Mayor Matt Mahan\u2019s policies is arresting homeless people<\/a> for trespassing if they refuse multiple offers of shelter.<\/p>\n \u201cSan Jose has made it difficult to impossible to be outside without facing some risk of enforcement, property loss and displacement if you are not involved in the continuum of care system, which most people want to be,\u201d Tristia Bauman, an attorney with the Law Foundation of Silicon Valley, told San Jos\u00e9 Spotlight. \u201cBut still there are more (homeless) people than (shelter beds) available<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n Grants Pass overturned a previous ruling that said penalizing people for sleeping on public property when no shelter beds were available was considered cruel and unusual punishment, violating the Eighth Amendment.<\/p>\n Since the ruling, more than 350 cities and 14 states<\/a> have passed policies that penalize homelessness, according to the National Homelessness Law Center.<\/p>\n Bauman said the most detrimental effect of Grants Pass has been the upending of legal tools to protect the most vulnerable people from harm.<\/p>\n \u201cBefore, if \u2026 criminal trespass citations (were enforced), we would have contemplated bringing a lawsuit with the Eighth Amendment\u2019s cruel and unusual punishments theory as one of the claims,\u201d Bauman said. \u201cThat had a lot of success in the courts, but the Supreme Court has taken away that tool.\u201d<\/p>\n San Jose\u2019s widespread sweeps of streets, creeks<\/a> and parks<\/a> has dismantled large homeless encampments<\/a> across the city. The city has simultaneously increased no encampment zones<\/a> in certain areas after sweeps. The downside, according to homeless advocate Todd Langton, is that it destroyed homeless people\u2019s sense of community. He\u2019s noticed it\u2019s taken a toll on their mental health, with people feeling more stressed and less open to services.<\/p>\n His group Agape Silicon Valley has had to change how it distributes supplies, food and tents since it can no longer find homeless people who have been swept. Instead of going into the creeks, where volunteers would serve more than 200 homeless people, they are now setting up tables at Roosevelt Park with the hope that people will come to them. The amount of people they serve has dropped by more than half.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s been very difficult for the advocates to serve. If we can\u2019t find them, we can\u2019t help them,\u201d Langton told San Jos\u00e9 Spotlight. \u201cFor example, we have a lady that we just found out she\u2019s being offered housing, and we can\u2019t find her (to get her into housing).\u201d<\/p>\n The clearing of waterways has allowed residents such as Gary Hector, board vice president of the Almaden Valley Community Association, to feel safer walking on trails<\/a> near his house.<\/p>\n \u201cNow I enjoy the walk. I don\u2019t worry about the homeless,\u201d he told San Jos\u00e9 Spotlight. \u201cMy concern has been that there should not be homeless (people) in the creek beds. \u2026 This is our watershed, this has to be protected.\u201d<\/p>\n Encounters with homeless people have also dropped on The Alameda<\/a>, according to Doug Cookerly, board president of the Alameda Business Association and owner of Hop & Vine. Before the city\u2019s push to get people off the streets, encounters were happening daily on the popular strip of restaurants. Now, he said a situation arises about every other month.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are very sensitive to their situations, but there\u2019s a point where it becomes extremely disruptive to your business and your neighborhood,\u201d Cookerly told San Jos\u00e9 Spotlight.<\/p>\n A spokesperson for the mayor\u2019s office said San Jose is the only city in the county addressing homeless encampments while investing in regional homelessness prevention and building hundreds of shelter beds. Since last year, the city has added more than 1,000 beds across a dozen new or expanded sites.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re replacing a failed status quo with results \u2014 and giving cities across California a framework to end the era of encampments by pairing compassion and accountability,\u201d spokesperson Seamus Gann told San Jos\u00e9 Spotlight.<\/p>\n But Bauman said the most harmful effects the Supreme Court ruling has had locally is the aggressive ticketing, towing and destroying of lived-in RVs<\/a>, since it causes people to lose something that is functionally similar to a home.<\/p>\n \u201cEnforcement is effective at one thing, and that is temporarily pushing people out of public view,\u201d she said. \u201cThat is a very myopic, expensive and harmful approach to the managing a community.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"In-line](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/interactive-321838904008.png\")
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