San Jose police dashboard details unhoused people interactions

The San Jose Police Department on Tuesday unveiled a new online dashboard that tracks officers' interactions with unhoused people.

The dashboard details the scope of interactions between officers and unhoused people, including the nature of the call for service and in which area of the city they occur.

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"The more we understand a problem, the better we can solve it," Mayor Matt Mahan said in a statement. "I want to thank our Police Department for developing this dashboard to show us exactly how much of their emergency response capacity goes to our crisis of homelessness. Because if we don’t know the full cost of leaving someone to suffer on our streets, it makes the conversation about what we’re willing to spend to get them off the streets even harder. I hope this new tool gives us a better look at just one of the many hidden costs of this crisis."

Data in the dashboard spans from Jan. 11, 2023 – the date the tracking system became fully operational – through the most recently completed month, police said.

"The public deserves to see not only how we respond, but where and when those responses occur," police Chief Paul Joseph said in a statement. "This dashboard is one more step toward clarity, compassion, and accountability."

Shaunn Cartwright with the Unhoused Response Group disagrees with Mahan. She said the dashboard is unnecessary and unfair.

"He's just targeting one protected class," Cartwright said. "He's not targeting disabled people. He's not targeting white people. He's just targeting unhoused people who are predominantly Black and brown people."