San Jose Mayor Pledges to Bring City Back to Basics: Inaugural Address Focuses on New Solutions to Blight, Homelessness and Crime
San Jose Mayor Pledges to Bring City Back to Basics: Inaugural Address Focuses on New Solutions to Blight, Homelessness and Crime
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 2, 2023
Media Contact:
Tasha Dean, Chief Communications Officer, Office of Mayor Matt Mahan, tasha.dean@sanjoseca.gov
San José, CA – In his first Inaugural address on February 1, 2023, San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan announced his plan to “get back to the basics,” by focusing on the issues that matter most to residents: blight, homelessness and crime. Mayor Mahan highlighted the importance of delivering results on key priorities and emphasized the over-complication of government that reduces the ability to deliver results on basic quality of life issues that impact San Jose’s residents daily.
Mayor Mahan announced several creative solutions to address blight, including:
The launch of his Inaugur-Action series. Inaugur-Action is a 10-week program kicking off a new era of resident involvement, where San Josean’s from across the city can join the Mayor by rolling up their sleeves to help beautify the place we all call home. The Inaugur-Action kicks off this Saturday, February 4th, from 9:00 a.m. - 11:00 a.m. in District 7.
Improvements to the San Jose 311 app, announcing the goal of faster response to blight reports–so they are addressed quickly and responded to with an “after photo” of the .
The goal to fully staff the code enforcement department, which is 22% under-staffed, to address the backlog of nearly 4,000 Code cases.
Mayor Mahan also addressed the growing worry over the current homelessness crisis, announcing plans to:
End San Jose’s era of unmanaged encampments— treating homelessness as the humanitarian crisis it is, and scale up basic, cost-effective and safe places for unhoused residents to live.
Support permanent supportive housing as the ultimate goal, but take action now due to the scale of the crisis.
Scale up shelter capacity and transition facilities in the meantime and dramatically reduce the barriers to getting our homeless neighbors into safe, managed spaces with bathrooms and basic services, pointing to the success of the response to the recent storm surges in which the city scaled up Emergency Transition Facilities which sheltered 126 homeless residents instead of turning them back out to the streets.
Invest in prevention. The Mayor believes is just common sense that it is better to spend a few thousand dollars to keep someone stably housed while they look for a new job than to spend the $65k per year per person it costs us to manage unsheltered homelessness.
Mayor Mahan also addressed the growing safety concerns of residents. He proposes a number of solutions including:
Reducing the average wait time of priority 1 and 2 calls by addressing staffing issues. Last year, our city council committed to adding 15 officers per year over the next five years. Mayor Mahan wants to double that rate to at least 30 officers per year.
Investing in better reporting tools, digitizing forms, and working with our County partners to reduce in-take times at the County Jail.
End the revolving door of justice by identifying the small number of people who need intervention and creating a system that intervenes early and appropriately. Police officers report arresting the same individuals a shocking number of times–between January 2020 and April 2022, SJPD arrested or cited 877 people 5 or more times, 103 people 10 or more times, and in that same time frame, one person was arrested 27 times.
our best crime fighting strategy in the long run is investing in our youth. As a former East Side public school teacher, I know the barriers and challenges our at-risk youth face. Life has not been fair to far too many of San Jose’s children, our children.
Investing in the after school programs, tutoring, job opportunities, gang prevention strategies and other tools at our disposal to give our kids access to a better future. Mayor Mahan believes our best crime fighting strategy in the long run is investing in our youth.
In a reference to California’s failing mental health system, the Mayor signaled his support for Governor Newsom’s CARE Courts, and vowed to champion Senator Susan Eggman should she introduce new bills in the State Legislature that work to update California’s conservatorship laws and improve access to treatment so that the State’s most vulnerable residents receive the care they need.
Among the solutions proposed was a call for accountability on the basics with the launch of a public “Dashboard of Results,” where residents will be able to monitor exactly what progress is being made on blight, crime and homelessness.
Mayor Mahan ended his address with hope for the future of the city, stating that, “San Jose is a place where every resident, newly immigrated or fifth generation, blue collar or tech founder, son of a mailman or daughter of a Mayor, will find a brighter future and endless opportunity.”
Read the full speech here.
Watch the full inaugural here.
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