San José Adopts Controversial Plan to Bus Homeless People Out of the City

As San José Mayor Matt Mahan continues to champion a drastic shift toward shorter-term solutions to ending street homelessness, the city is rolling out another avenue to that end: busing people who are unhoused to family members or friends who will take them in.

Mahan and city housing officials say the pilot program, called Homeward Bound, will serve as another tool in the city’s kit to help bring thousands of people who currently have nowhere else to go into a managed living situation. It is set to start as soon as this week and will provide up to $1,000 for bus and train tickets as far away as the East Coast.

“Many of the people living and dying on our streets have a loved one who cares for them,” Mahan said during a Tuesday press conference outside City Hall. “Many have connections and ties to places they can’t reach. And each one has a different story, a different reason for being on the streets.”

However, a local advocate for unhoused people and a Bay Area homelessness researcher are skeptical the program will be effective and are concerned about the lack of follow-up and limited data from similar programs run in other cities. In San Francisco, which has had similar programs running for two decades, the success of those efforts has been hard to track, and of what data there is, the results are mixed.

Mahan acknowledged the program, which will be funded with $200,000 of city money and run by its outreach workers or contractors, will not be a fit for everyone.

“But it’s the right program for anyone trying to get home, trying to restart their lives and reconnect with family or friends who are willing to help,” he said.

The program doesn’t have any firmly defined goals or benchmarks, but Mahan and city officials said San José will be collecting information about who uses it and plan to analyze that when deciding whether to expand the effort in the future.

For Gail Osmer, an advocate who regularly assists unhoused people with finding resources and services, the program feels like the wrong approach.

“Out of sight, out of mind,” Osmer said, adding that she feels Mahan is just using this program as a way to shift homelessness off of San José’s list of things to address.

“Do you think the unhoused are going to trust a stranger or somebody they don’t really know to give them information or even talk to them about going home?” Osmer said.

She also expressed concern that the city wouldn’t be able to ensure people remain housed and safe wherever they end up.

“What if somebody is clean and sober, and they send them home, and they’re in a home where there’s alcoholism?” Osmer said. “I think this is just a way to get rid of the unhoused.”

In San Francisco, a data dashboard from the city’s Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing shows that 1,159 people used one of the city’s three relocation assistance programs from Fiscal Year 2022 to present. However, the dashboard does not include any data about where people end up.

The San Francisco Chronicle reported last year that about 60% of people remained with their friends or family after follow-ups. The rest could not be tracked.

The lack of clear data on the outcomes for people using the program concerns Dr. Jamie Chang, an associate professor at UC Berkeley’s School of Social Welfare, whose research focuses on homelessness and substance use treatment.

“I think that while these programs might temporarily be effective at removing people from an area, without a system in place to ensure their success elsewhere, I’m skeptical about its overall efficacy,” Chang told KQED. “We don’t really know what happens to people once they’re dropped off at their destination.”

She also said the programs should be monitored and tracked closely so they are not used to coerce people to leave.

Erik Soliván, San José’s director of housing, said the city has evaluated San Francisco’s program and plans to have case managers speak with the person who would be taking in their unhoused friend or family member upfront to verify that it will be safe and stable.

“The learning from the San Francisco model is that we have to do some due diligence and put an expectation on the individual that once you land, call us,” he said.

However, there won’t be too many restrictions in place, and there won’t be continued follow-up once a person has made it to their landing spot.

“We’re not going to require a family member because maybe it’s a friend. We’re not going to require that the landing place be a particular house because maybe it’s an ADU they’re living in. There’s lots of options,” Soliván said.

He added that outreach workers will be authorized to spend up to $500 during routine conversations with unhoused people to set them up with transportation or up to $1,000 after receiving a supervisor’s approval.

“They’re going to have iPads and phones to make that transaction available. So that way, if it’s just a ticket to go to Portland and hop on a bus, you can make that happen today and turn it around,” Soliván said.

Chang said the program could be effective for some people who have access to support in another place, but that is uncommon among people experiencing homelessness.

“It’s not the inability to get a ticket to go home that’s the issue,” she said. “For most people who are homeless, it’s actually having a safe place to go home to begin with, as well as having the adequate services to treat trauma, and mental health, and access to quality substance use treatment.”