The City of San Jose is committed to addressing homelessness with a balanced approach—scaling safe, dignified shelter options while encouraging individuals to come indoors. In early 2025, city leadership introduced the Responsibility to Shelter Initiative to strengthen engagement with residents who repeatedly refuse available shelter or housing.
The policy was prompted by the opening of a new interim housing community, where nearly 30% of nearby encampment residents declined to move indoors. Under the initiative, individuals who consistently refuse shelter may face consequences such as citations or trespassing enforcement—but only as a last resort. The ultimate goal is to connect residents to treatment and long-term care through behavioral health and court diversion programs.
To implement this strategy, the city launched two complementary programs:
Enhanced Engagement Program (EEP): Led by the Housing Department, EEP teams conduct outreach at large or long-standing encampments, build case files on individuals, offer consistent services, and coordinate with public safety teams. Their work ensures engagement is sustained, standardized, and data-driven.
Neighborhood Quality of Life (NQOL) Unit: Formed by the Police Department, this team focuses on enforcing municipal laws, mitigating health and safety risks at encampments, sharing information with EEP to support connections to stabilizing services, and referring non-compliant cases to behavioral health pathways whenever feasible.
Impact or how it will be measured:
The EEP is responsible for tracking engagement, gathering data, and then using their discretion to decide the best course of action for each individual. Using the engagement tracking and data collection from the EEP, the city will be able to measure the impact and effectiveness of the initiative and then if needed adapt to any trends that the data presents.
The city is on track to add 1,400 safe, dignified shelter placements by September 2025—including hotel/motel conversions, tiny home communities, safe parking sites, and safe sleeping areas—more than any city on the West Coast. The initiative balances historic investments in shelter with accountability measures to encourage individuals to come indoors.