March 3, 2026
Mayor & City Council, et. al
City of San José
200 East Santa Clara Street, 18th Floor
San José, CA 95113
Sent via electronic mail
REAL Coalition CSJ RA + Property Procedures Analysis Re: City Council Item 3.4 Dear Mayor Mayor Mahan, Vice-Mayor Foley and Members of the City Council:
This letter is submitted by the Housing Justice Workgroup of the Race Equity Action Leadership (REAL) Coalition. REAL is a nonprofit coalition advancing racial equity in public policy across Santa Clara County. In developing this analysis, we have engaged with frontline advocates working daily in encampments working with unhoused residents directly impacted by the City’s policies.
Homelessness in San José is not experienced equally. African American residents, other communities of color, people with disabilities, and historically marginalized communities are significantly overrepresented among those living outdoors. Policies governing reasonable accommodations (RA) and property impoundment related to interventions with people living outdoors or in vehicles therefore carry profound racial and disability equity implications.
Reasonable Accommodation Procedures
The City has determined that its RA procedures are consistent with applicable laws. Legal compliance, however, is not an equity standard. When policies govern how people with disabilities navigate displacement, loss of shelter, and potential loss of personal property, the measure of success must include whether those policies reduce harm, remove barriers to access, and are experienced as fair and comprehensible by the people they are intended to protect.
As reported by URG and others, unhoused residents are experiencing confusion about how to request an accommodation, uncertainty about timelines and outcomes, and inconsistent application across sites. These experiences matter. When communities already overrepresented in homelessness encounter avoidable barriers within the accommodation process, the equity consequences are significant. Those lived realities warrant structured review and responsive adjustment.
REAL Coalition CSJ RA + Property Procedures Analysis
March 3, 2026
At present, meaningful review is not possible. The memorandum does not include the governing RA procedures themselves. Council and the public are being asked to evaluate the sufficiency of a process without access to the underlying policy. That is a serious transparency gap. We recommend that this item return to Council or to an appropriate Council committee with the full RA procedures attached, so they can be properly examined, assessed against equity objectives, and informed by stakeholder input.
Engagement and Policy Development
The memorandum indicates that the current review of the RA and Personal Property Impound processes did not include structured engagement with individuals with lived experience, disability advocates, or nonprofit providers with operational insight into encampment response.
It is unclear why such engagement was not incorporated. The City has historically convened stakeholder discussions regarding homelessness and encampment policies and implementation challenges. While agreement is not guaranteed in those settings, the inclusion of lived and operational experience strengthens policy design and surfaces implementation gaps that may not be visible internally.
We respectfully recommend that Council direct staff to convene unhoused residents, disability advocates, and housing and service providers to examine how these procedures function in practice and to identify potential refinements.
Transparency and Accountability Through Data
Beyond clear documentation and meaningful engagement, effective governance requires measurable accountability.
The development of a data and outcome reporting system for the RA process presents an opportunity to move beyond activity tracking toward outcome-based evaluation.
However, the memorandum does not clearly specify what data will be collected, how it will be disaggregated, or how it will be reported publicly.
Without defined data standards, Council and the public cannot determine whether:
● Access to the RA process is consistent,
● Outcomes vary across departments or sites,
●
REAL Coalition CSJ RA + Property Procedures Analysis
March 3, 2026
● Certain demographic groups experience different results, or
● Implementation aligns with the City’s stated equity commitments.
To support meaningful evaluation, we offer the following recommendations regarding data collection and reporting:
Volume and Access
● How many RA requests were received during each reporting period, broken down by abatement site and department (BeautifySJ, Housing, OLIVE)? ● How many RA requests made to SJPD were redirected to another program/department?
● How many requests were received verbally in the field vs. through formal written channels vs. submitted by a third-party advocate or service provider on someone's behalf?
● How many individuals were informed of their right to request an RA during the noticing period, and through what mechanism?
Types of Requests
● What was the nature of the accommodation requested? The City should track categories including but not limited to:
● Extended time to gather belongings due to disability (mobility, cognitive, psychiatric)
● Medication storage or safe transfer of prescribed medications ● Translation or language access for communications, forms, or verbal instructions
● Communication supports (ASL, plain language, alternative formats) ● Assistance with physical tasks (packing, lifting) due to physical disability ● Requests to delay abatement pending connection to accessible shelter or housing
● Requests related to service or support animals
● Requests related to durable medical equipment (wheelchairs, walkers, oxygen)
● Requests that were informal or verbal and granted in the field without documentation
● Who logged the accommodation request (city staff, service provider, advocate)? If City staff, which team?
●
REAL Coalition CSJ RA + Property Procedures Analysis
March 3, 2026
● If the City receives a kind of regular request not specified on this list, these asks should be tracked in its own category
● Requests related to culturally-specific needs.
Outcomes
● Of all RA requests received, how many were: (a) granted as requested; (b) granted with modification (i.e., a different accommodation was offered — and what was it?); (c) denied; (d) discontinued because the individual could not be reached or withdrew the request?
● For requests that were denied: what was the stated reason, and was a written explanation provided to the individual?
● For requests that resulted in a modified accommodation: was the individual notified of why the modification was made, and did they accept it? Timeliness
● What was the average and median time from RA request submission to decision, by request type and outcome?
● How many requests exceeded a defined response benchmark (the City should set a minimum turnaround time on responses to a RA request of 72 hours and hold abatement until a response is provided, unless an emergency exists). ● How many abatements proceeded while an RA request was still pending? Who Requested RAs and Who Was Affected
● Who submitted the request: the individual themselves, a community advocate, a service provider, or City staff on the individual's behalf? ● What are the demographic characteristics — race, ethnicity, gender identity, age, disability type where provided — of individuals who submitted RA requests, and how do those characteristics correlate with outcomes (granted vs. denied vs. modified)? (The notice of rights should explain why the city needs to track this data and make clear that providing this data is voluntary.) ● Among individuals who were subject to abatement but did not submit an RA:
what is the demographic breakdown, and is there evidence that certain populations are less likely to access the process?
System-Level and Equity Reporting
●
REAL Coalition CSJ RA + Property Procedures Analysis
March 3, 2026
● Are RA grant rates consistent across departments (BeautifySJ vs. Housing vs.
OLIVE) and across abatement sites, or do they vary significantly? Significant variation suggests inconsistent application.
● Do individuals who submitted RAs through an advocate or service provider have different outcomes than those who submitted on their own? If so, this suggests the process is more accessible to people with support systems. ● What percentage of abatements included the Disability Affairs Officer in post-abatement debriefs, as the memo commits to?
● How many staff and contractors received required biannual SOP training, and what percentage of abatements were conducted by trained staff? Governance and Council Oversight
Any substantive modifications to the RA or Personal Property Impound procedures should return to Council for discussion and any changes to those procedures should be documented in the appropriate Committee reports.
Conclusion
Policies governing reasonable accommodations and property impoundment in encampment contexts should reflect best practices in equity-centered governance — not simply legal minimums. Clear documentation, structured community engagement, transparent reporting, and outcome-based accountability are not ancillary considerations; they are foundational components of sound public policy.
We urge Council to ensure that these procedures are:
● Clearly documented and publicly accessible
● Informed by structured engagement with affected stakeholders ● Evaluated using disaggregated, outcome-focused data
● Subject to transparent Council oversight
These steps will strengthen the integrity, consistency, and equity of the City’s approach.
Lastly, REAL Coalition supports the letters submitted by URG and the Law Foundation of Silicon Valley.
Sincerely,
Housing Justice Workgroup, REAL Coalition
REAL Coalition CSJ RA + Property Procedures Analysis
March 3, 2026
About the REAL Coalition
The REAL community of Silicon Valley based nonprofit leaders and allies has been meeting since June 2020 to use our positional power to advocate for a more racially-just and equitable society; to establish a peer network of leaders committed to fighting white supremacy and systemic racism in ourselves and our institutions; and to hold each other accountable to the promises we made in the Nonprofit Racial Equity Pledge. The REAL coalition is broadly representative of the nonprofit community including human and community services, behavioral health and health, arts and culture, domestic violence, older adults, food security, education, environmental, farming, legal, disability rights, LGTBQ rights, ethnic, immigrant rights, housing and homelessness, criminal justice reform, urban planning, and intermediary organizations, and others. REAL has 50 core organizational members and over 125 organizations have participated in REAL.