According to a new report by City Auditor Sharon Erickson, San Jose cleared homeless people out of their illegal camps this year at more than 11 times the rate it had in 2013. The number of sweeps soared from 49 five years ago to 563 this fiscal year, which pushed annual abatement costs from $1.3 million to $2 million in that same timeframe.
11 times the number of sweeps and yet budget only increased 54%?
What’s included in the homeless sweep budget? I think police salary is already in police budget. Social worker salary is also in separate budget. Street cleaning may need extra hours.
Is the budget only for extra street cleaning hours? They had 514 extra sweeps and an extra budget of 700k, that’s $1,360 per sweep. I guess most of the sweep may involve a few people, it’s unlikely they have 562 huge homeless camps.
In 2013, they spent $26,000 per sweep, that’s really high. Maybe they hired people dedicated to homeless sweep coordination? These people can easily manage 1-1000 sweeps probably with the same salary and benefit package.
See? Not so easy being a world class city, is it?