Overview
- San Jose announced Thursday that its internal tracking shows a 32% drop in people living unsheltered over 18 months, from roughly 5,400 in February 2025 to about 3,700 in August 2026.
- Officials credit the change to about 1,000 interim housing units, including quick-build tiny homes and converted motel rooms, plus targeted encampment removals and no-reencampment zones.
- The city rolled out UrbanLogiq, an algorithmic model that combines 15 data sources from police, outreach teams and public works to produce quarterly estimates used for operational decisions.
- Homeless advocates and some service providers say the model may understate needs, point to a reported rise in deaths and warn that temporary housing and cleanups do not replace long-term affordable housing or treatment.
- San Jose says other large cities have asked about the model but the federal Point-in-Time count remains the funding benchmark, leaving uncertainty over how state and federal agencies will weigh the city’s estimates.