California to help San Jose lower its unsheltered homelessness through new cooperative agreement

What you need to know: After months of negotiations, the City of San Jose has agreed to collaborate with Caltrans to address unsheltered homelessness within its city limits.

SAN JOSE - California announced today that the City of San Jose has entered into an agreement with the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) to help clear encampments that migrate onto state rights-of-way in the city. San Jose is joining 21 other cities that have already signed such agreements.

"Living in dangerous and unsanitary encampments should never be someone's only option. In California, we've built systems of care - real alternatives that get people indoors and connected to treatment, housing, and stability.

"I'm glad to see San Jose stepping up with the state to reduce unsheltered homelessness and address encampments in the city. As a former mayor myself, I get how tough local management can be - but this is what partnership looks like - the city and state rolling up their sleeves to support this community together."

Governor Gavin Newsom

The agreement streamlines the process of clearing encampments that have migrated onto state rights-of-way within San Jose city limits by authorizing the city to conduct removal operations directly. It requires San Jose to conduct encampment cleanups and maintenance activities in a manner aligned with state and local policies. And it requires specific reporting and accountability to ensure that eligible costs reimbursed by the state are tracked and used effectively and transparently.

Cleanup operations will continue to prioritize encampments that pose health and safety risks, such as those located near active traffic lanes, confined spaces, unstable structures, or areas where unhoused individuals face a heightened risk of injury. Under the agreement, San Jose maintenance and landscape crews will be responsible for removing litter, debris, weeds, and resolving encampments in designated state right-of-way areas. Similar agreements have already been established between Caltrans and the cities of San Francisco and San Diego.

These agreements add to work that has been underway since 2021 by the state, with Caltrans having removed more than 19,000 encampments on state right-of-way and collected approximately 354,000 cubic yards of litter and debris. From July 1, 2024, to June 30, 2025, Caltrans removed 115 encampments in the City of San Jose - an increase of more than 50 percent from the previous fiscal year - and collected 9,200 cubic yards of debris.

Since 2019, through the Department of Housing and Community Development, the state has provided the City of San Jose $482.6 million to create new housing, which includes $126.8 million to specifically assist San Jose in addressing homelessness. California has also provided the County of Santa Clara with $246.7 million, which includes projects benefiting the City of San Jose.

The collaboration is a hallmark of Governor Newsom's work with local governments, including through the State Action for Facilitation of Encampments (SAFE) Task Force - established to urgently address encampments and accelerate access to care and services. Although San Jose informed the state it was unable to provide required services to assist with the task force, since August, SAFE has executed removal operations in San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, Anaheim and Fresno, marshaling state agencies and local partners to remove unsafe encampments and deliver social services, health care, substance use support and temporary and longer-term housing options.

Strategies that work

Governor Newsom is the first Governor to make addressing homelessness - an issue decades in the making - a top priority. Since taking office in 2019, the Governor has created unprecedented policy and structural changes in state government to help California better address its housing and homelessness crises, including additional and unprecedented support for local governments, stronger accountability and enforcement, transformational changes to mental health services and state government, and groundbreaking reforms to create more housing, faster than ever before.