San Jose Reports 32% Decline in Unsheltered Homeless Population

San Jose’s mayor and housing officials are celebrating a headline‑grabbing number: a 32 % dip in the city’s unsheltered homeless count over the last year and a half. The claim, they say, comes from a fresh, independently verified model that tracks people sleeping outside more often than the old point‑in‑time surveys.

“In just the last 18 months we have reduced the number of people living outside on our streets by 32 %,” Mayor Matt Mahan said in a press briefing, smiling as he pointed to a chart that drops from roughly 5,400 in February 2025 to about 3,700 in August 2026. He added that the city’s “encampment clean‑ups, no‑re‑encampment zones and emergency housing alternatives” are the big drivers behind the change.

People who walk past places like Arena Green near the SAP Center do say they see fewer tents and fewer makeshift shelters. Yet, the feeling of improvement isn’t universal. Unhoused advocate Shaunn Cartwright, who has been on the ground daily, sounded skeptical.

“You’re out in the community every day. Does it seem like there’s a 32 % decrease?” reporter Dustin Dorsey asked her. Cartwright replied, “No. We also have an increase in deaths this year. We’re on pace to match last year’s 160 deaths, and suddenly there’s this new metric that makes the mayor look better.”

The new model, Mahan explained, isn’t just a fancy spreadsheet. It pulls together 15 different data points—shelter intake, outreach reports, 311 calls, you name it—to estimate unsheltered numbers roughly every 90 days. That’s a big jump from the traditional count that happens once every two years.

According to the city, the model even flagged about 1,500 more unsheltered folks than the county’s official count at the same time, suggesting the older method may have missed people. Supporters argue that having near‑real‑time data lets officials tweak strategies on the fly, testing what works and dropping what doesn’t.

Other municipalities are listening. Officials from Los Angeles and Denver have reportedly reached out to learn how San Jose built the algorithm, hoping to copy the “data‑driven” approach for their own homelessness challenges.

Critics, however, warn that numbers alone can be misleading. “A drop in the count doesn’t necessarily mean fewer people are suffering,” said Cartwright. “If you’re moving people off the streets into unsafe, temporary housing or simply pushing them out of sight, the human cost is still there.”

The city says it will keep refining the model, aiming for a more dynamic, responsive system. Whether the 32 % figure reflects a real, lasting shift—or just a snapshot that masks deeper problems—remains a topic of heated debate across San Jose’s streets and council chambers.