Officials to audit city of San Jose's spending
Following an 8% increase in homelessness in San Jose from 2019 to 2022, California is set to take a close look at how much the city is spending on addressing the issue.
On March 29, the state's Joint Legislative Audit Committee voted unanimously to approve an audit request made by Sen. Dave Cortese, D-san Jose, last year. The audit comes at a time when California has spent $15 billion on homelessness over the last several years.
Cortese says he wants to make sure that money is being spent correctly, and he wants to do it while the state is still committed to making an “unprecedented investment” in combatting homelessness.
“Our residents deserve to know how the dollars are getting there and how they're being invested, what's working and what's not and I think we need to know that, as well,” he said. “Adding transparency will help both the state and local jurisdictions work together to best spend these dollars going forward.”
Cortese's audit request includes questions about how money from Project
Homekey — a Gov. Gavin Newsom pandemic initiative to help cities and counties convert hotels into housing — has been spent, how other local funds for
addressing homelessness are being used and what the city's proposed sites are for both permanent housing and temporary shelters.
In a statement, San Jose
Mayor Matt Mahan said he was “all for continuously auditing our work as we seek to learn and improve.”
“While we're at it, I hope the senator's audit will include the state and counties, which have left cities like San Jose on the front line of this crisis with far too little support for mental health care, addiction treatment, jail re-entry programs, affordable housing and many other contributing factors,” Mahan added.
Cortese is also requesting the state examine the spending of one other jurisdiction aside from San Jose, which will be chosen by the auditor.
The request for the audit came following the senator's visit to an encampment at San Jose's Columbus Park, which he said was one of the largest encampments in the state at the time. The encampment was cleared out last year.
“We've all seen homeless encampments, but what I saw was far worse than a tent city,” he said at the hearing. “It was a public health disaster.”
Cortese recalled seeing rodents running around, piles of trash, broken RVS and cars turned upside down with people living inside. The senator called it “brutal and unacceptable.”
California state auditor Grant Parks estimated the audit would take about 5,000 hours of work and could be completed in six to seven months.