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San Jose must make a big push to tackle homelessness in the coming 12 months, San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan said Saturday, describing the problem as the “biggest crisis — humanitarian, environmental and fiscal” facing the Bay Area’s largest city. He made the call to action in his annual State of the City speech, held in a meadow at San Jose’s Happy Hollow Zoo. “Over the next year, we will move over 1,000 additional people out of unsafe conditions who would otherwise continue to live on our streets and along waterways,” he vowed.

That includes an estimated 500 people who are living next to waterways in what he called “life-threatening situations.” San Jose officials, including the city attorney, have raised the ominous prospect that the municipality could face fines and litigation from the Regional Water Board or other agencies regarding pollution and impact in waterways arising from nearby homeless encampments. “At the end of the day, it’s pretty simple,” Mahan said during a press conference before the event.



“We ought to provide safe, dignified places for people to be, and when they are available we ought to require that people come off the streets.” Among the new solutions being considered: safe sleeping sites for homeless people, an approach that has begun to bear fruit in San Diego. Still, the pathway is tricky at best, since San Jose must confront the forbidding reality of a $55 million budget shortfall in the coming weeks and months.

“We’re g.

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