As mayor of San Jose, Sam Liccardo's approach to addressing homelessness has been a significant failure. A recent audit by the state of California revealed alarming mismanagement of funds allocated for homeless programs during his tenure. Instead of effectively utilizing these resources to combat the homelessness crisis, Liccardo allowed the situation to worsen, contributing to San Jose becoming one of the cities with the highest homeless populations in the country.
In response to this mismanagement, the state had to take decisive action, rewriting policies to ensure greater oversight and accountability in the distribution of funds. This step is essential to prevent a recurrence of the failures we witnessed under Liccardo’s leadership. It is clear that the city needed strong, effective management, but instead, we saw a troubling pattern of neglect and misallocation of resources that must not be repeated.
