TO: HONORABLE MAYOR AND FROM: Mayor Matt Mahan
CITY COUNCIL Vice Mayor Pam Foley
Councilmember David Cohen
Councilmember Michael Mulcahy
Councilmember George Casey
SUBJECT: SEE BELOW DATE: December 12, 2025
Approved
SUBJECT: ACTIONS RELATED TO GRANT AGREEMENTS FOR MULTIPLE
EMERGENCY INTERIM HOUSING PROGRAM SITES
RECOMMENDATION
Accept the staff recommendation and direct the City Manager to:
1. Prioritize efforts to centralize food, site security, and property and asset management services, implement resulting cost savings before the end of the third quarter of FY 2025-2026, and produce a Manager’s Budget Addendum (MBA) that evaluates the cost savings from centralizing these services
2. Develop a real-time dashboard by June 2026 to publicly report the following contractual outcomes and performance metrics for each interim housing site a. Total number of people housed
b. Total number of exits
c. Total number of successful exits, which includes other interim and permanent housing options, further broken down by exits to subsidized housing, unsubsidized housing, and family reunifications.
d. Total number of other exits, broken down by incarceration, hospitalization, unsheltered homelessness, or program termination
e. Total number of exits without notification / unit abandonments f. Total number of deaths
3. Survey each site on acuity levels, employment and income summaries, and permanent housing rejections among current program participants
4. Engage people with lived experience to help inform the City’s efforts to progress clients along a continuum of housing options
COUNCIL AGENDA: 12/16/25
FILE: 25-1316
ITEM: 2.18
HONORABLE MAYOR AND CITY COUNCIL
December 12, 2025
Subject: Actions Related To Grant Agreements For Multiple Emergency Interim Housing Program Sites
BACKGROUND
Last year, the Council directed the City Manager to standardize operations and performance metrics across our entire interim housing portfolio. Since then, thanks to the tremendous efforts of staff within the City Manager’s Office, Public Works, Housing, and BeautifySJ, we have opened more than 1,000 new placements in our shelter system. With one more EIH community left to open, the City will soon manage and oversee a system of more than 1,800 units and 2,100 beds that provide safety and dignity for our unhoused residents.
As we shift our focus from system expansion to optimization, the Housing Department is working to separately bid and award competitive contracts for security, food, and asset and property management. This approach will allow onsite providers to focus on delivering case management services while establishing economies of scale for the provision of food, security, and property management – generating cost savings and operational efficiencies across the portfolio. The City Manager should continue to prioritize and accelerate this effort so that the resulting cost savings can help inform FY 26-27 budget planning.
Given our significant investment in EIH and other interim site operations, we must also ensure transparency around contractual outcomes and performance metrics for each site. In June 2024, Council directed staff to establish clear contractual outcomes and appropriate performance metrics for all interim operating agreements. These metrics should be publicly accessible and regularly updated to confirm that our investments are effectively moving people toward long- term housing solutions. Tracking and analyzing these outcomes will also help us identify patterns in resident throughput – such as when people decline to move on, where they relocate, when they do or do not require a subsidized next step, and when they achieve self-sufficiency – enabling us to tailor services and supports to better meet residents’ needs and improve outcomes. Finally, we are directing staff to engage people with lived experience as their perspectives can help inform our programs and strategies.
The signers of this memorandum have not had, and will not have, any private conversation with any other member of the City Council, or that member’s staff, concerning any action discussed in the memorandum, and that each signer’s staff members have not had, and have been instructed not to have, any such conversation with any other member of the City Council or that member's staff.