(d)4: City Council Focus Area Status Report:
Reducing Unsheltered Homelessness
Neighborhood Services & Education Committee
June 11, 2026
City of San José
City Manager’s Office
Erik Soliván, Director, Housing Department
Andrea Flores Shelton, Assistant Director, Parks, Recreation and Neighborhood Services Department John Ristow, Director, Department of Transportation
Focus Area Background
Agenda
1 2
3 Execution as Learning – Focus Area Portfolio Update
Next Steps
2 3
Focus
Areas (5)
Core Services (74)
Budget Programs (259)
Complex long-term
initiatives requiring
significant staff
capacity and crossdepartment
coordination
Services that the
City routinely
delivers and
Departments largely
manage
independently
Focus Areas
An Opportunity to Evolve
City staff are advancing a professional
environment of learning and continuous
improvement that will drive results for the
community ...
While data support storytelling, numbers alone do not show progress and require context setting
Learning in public builds trust and accountability
Retrospection contributes to learning and understanding Progress requires humility, iteration, and commitment 4 Focus Areas
Philosophy and Principles
Reducing Unsheltered
Homelessness Focus Area
5 1. Shelter System Capacity & Operations. The City continues to face a shortfall in units and spaces despite recent expansion. Problem Goals Metrics Move toward functional zero in unsheltered homelessness by proactively and effectively managing the shelter system, increasing throughput into permanent housing, and improving data systems to guide investment.
Long-Term
Goal Indicators
2. Unsustainable Funding. The City’s shelter system lacks stable, long-term revenue sources. Problem Goals Metrics
3. Environmental Compliance & Public Spaces. Sustaining clean waterways and establishing No-Encampment Zones around Emergency Interim Housing sites remains difficult with limited shelter capacity.
Problem Goals Metrics
Reducing Unsheltered Homelessness Focus Area
4. Data & Forecasting Infrastructure. The City lacks consistent and reliable inflow-outflow data to forecast homelessness. Problem Goals Metrics 6 What’s going well. San José has made unprecedented investments to reduce unsheltered homelessness and its environmental impacts. The City has expanded shelter and safe parking capacity at record speed and sustained compliance on 26 miles of priority waterways, preventing re-encampments and reducing environmental discharge.
Main Challenges Moving Forward.
1. Shelter supply. Despite significant City shelter expanision and safe parking sites coming online, overall demand exceeds current capacity. Progress toward functional zero will depend less on building thousands of additional shelter beds and more on accelerating throughput from shelter into permanent housing. This work is closely tied to the City’s Building More Housing focus area. 2. Unsustainable funding. Operations remain heavily dependent on a combination of state resources (HHAP and HomeKey) and Measure E dollars, with limited secured long-term sources. Without more stable, ongoing funding, the shelter system cannot be sustained or reliably operated to support functional zero.
3. Displacement pressures. Enforcement along waterways has relocated individuals into new parts of the City, creating additional outreach and shelter needs. These pressures divert resources and disrupt progress toward system stability.
4. Data limitations. Gaps in real-time tracking of how many people are entering homelessness versus exiting into programs (inflow-outflow) slow efforts to forecast demand and manage the system proactively.
Move toward functional zero in unsheltered homelessness by proactively and effectively managing the shelter system, increasing throughput into permanent housing, and improving data systems to guide investment.
Long-Term
Goal
Context Indicators
# of New Units
Online
(705 by Calendar
Year 2025)
No-Encampment
Zones Maintained
≤ 65 reencampments/
quarter in waterway
NEZs;
Cost
Reduction
(up to 20% across
24 sites)
Forecasting Tool Updates
(quarterly, multi-department data)
7 Reducing Unsheltered Homelessness Focus Area
No-Encampment
Zones Maintained
≥ 80% of reencampments
resolved within NEZs
in 2 business days)
8 Goal 1.1 Bring all planned 705 shelter units online by the end of Calendar Year 2025.
Goal 1.2 Standardize shelter system operations, budgets, and performance metrics across all 24 sites to decrease costs by up to 20% by June 2026.
Goal 1.3 Improve outreach & engagement tracking to increase placements into shelter, housing, and services.
Goal 2.1 Sustain and diversified funding sources to reduce reliance on one-time or annual allocations.
Goal 2.2 Implement CalAIM billing for eligible services to sustain operations & reduce reliance on General Fund.
1. Shelter System Capacity and Problem Operations.
Problem 2. Unsustainable Funding.
3. Environmental Compliance and Public Problem Spaces.
Problem 4. Data and Forecasting Infrastructure.
Goal 3.1 Maintain environmental compliance in 26 miles of priority waterways & corridors by maintaining No-Encampment Zones (NEZs), limiting re-encampment and displacement impacts.
Goal 3.2 Maintain NEZs in public spaces around Emergency Interim Housing sites to limit re-encampment & ensure site accessibility.
Goal 4.1 Improve homelessness forecasting and reporting tools.
Goal 4.2 Strengthen HMIS data exchange with County and deploy new reporting tools.
Move toward functional zero in unsheltered homelessness by proactively and effectively managing the shelter system, increasing throughput into permanent housing, and improving data systems to guide investment.
Long-Term
Goal
Reducing Unsheltered Homelessness Focus Area
Blue: Complete
Green: On Track
Yellow: Needs Attention
Red: Off Track
Gray: Not Started
Key Lessons Learned through Portfolio Retrospectives
• Standardizing Operations Requires Managing Complexity Across Delivery Models: Cost savings depend on more than budget reductions; they require standardized operating models, provider negotiations, procurement timelines, contract amendments, and alignment with the Admissions and Continued Occupancy Policy. • Outreach Needs Clear Workflows and Data Systems: Expanding the Enhanced Engagement Team requires clear roles, referral pathways, and coordination protocols with PRNS, DOT, PD, and providers before outreach outcomes can be consistently tracked and compared. • Maintaining NEZs Requires Sustained Capacity: Re-encampments increased in Q3, reinforcing that maintaining priority areas requires ongoing monitoring, rapid response, and sufficient staffing; enforcement and abatement activity can also shift people into other neighborhoods and public spaces. • Vehicle Enforcement Can Shift Conditions Elsewhere: A retrospective on the Oversized Lived-In Vehicle Enforcement (OLIVE) program identified that enforcement can create vehicle circulation and move impacts to nearby areas; future work should build on data analysis to develop a more proactive deployment model. • Reporting Tools Require Governance Before Scale: Strengthening HMIS and GIS reporting requires secure data-sharing, compliance review, and coordination with County partners.
Move toward functional zero in unsheltered homelessness by proactively and effectively managing the shelter system, increasing throughput into permanent housing, and improving data systems to guide investment.
Long-Term
Goal
Reducing Unsheltered Homelessness Focus Area
9 Key Lessons Learned through Portfolio Retrospectives
• Shelter Site Activation: Executing the development of shelter capacity requires coordinated delivery from many departments and contractors, resulting in schedule delays; complex partnerships can extend opening timeframes, requiring sustained coordination. • Standardizing Operations: Policies, staffing models, and budgets change as system optimization is running parallel with system expansion with the final new sites coming online; cost savings take time to materialize because they require partner negotiations, contractual amendments, and alignment of operations to new contract provisions. • Building CalAIM Architecture: Building the infrastructure for medical billing and coding at sites to receive service expenditure reimbursements requires more reliance than anticipated on County infrastructure and further system integration. NOTE: While the City has received a matching grant from the California Department of Health Care Services (DHCS), to support this, shifting Federal funding for MediCal may jeopardize this effort. • Shelter Capacity and Enforcement: Keeping priority areas clear can relocate people into other neighborhoods and increase vehicle habitation pressure, creating continuous operational redundancy for outreach, shelter, and field teams. • Tracking Outcomes: Data-sharing limits (including restrictions on law enforcement access) mean that teams, particularly the Enhanced Engagement Program Team (Housing Department) and the Neighborhood Quality of Life Team (Police Department), often need parallel systems, which may require system enhancements for clear data and outcome comparisons and reporting.
Move toward functional zero in unsheltered homelessness by proactively and effectively managing the shelter system, increasing throughput into permanent housing, and improving data systems to guide investment.
Long-Term
Goal
Reducing Unsheltered Homelessness Focus Area
10 What’s Next?
Focus Areas and the
FY 2026-2027 Budget
Process
11 What’s Next?
Focus Areas and the FY 2026-2027 Budget Process
Embedding Focus Area discussion into the Budget Process to ensure co-creation of strategies aimed to meet our Long-Term Goals 12 Current • Manager’s Budget Addendum. The Administration published MBA #8 which establishes a recommendeded path for FY 2026-2027 Focus Area work plans based on City Council direction in the Mayor’s March Budget Message. • June Budget Message. Through adoption of the June Budget Message, the City Council will formally adopt the Focus Area work plans for FY 2026-2027.
Next • Fall 2026. The Administration will bring a FY 2025-2026 Focus Area Annual Report to City Council providing final progress and lessons learned from the past fiscal year work plan.
Later
• December 2026. Each respective Committee will receive a status update on progress and lessons learned through execution of the current fiscal year work plan. (d)4: City Council Focus Area Status Report:
Reducing Unsheltered Homelessness
Neighborhood Services & Education Committee
June 11, 2026
City of San José
City Manager’s Office
Erik Soliván, Director, Housing Department
Andrea Flores Shelton, Assistant Director, Parks, Recreation and Neighborhood Services Department John Ristow, Director, Department of Transportation