Then the Tiny Keyboard Shop is for you.

It offers the colorful, sometimes obnoxiously loud and highly customizable keyboards known for an old-school typing experience reminiscent of the 1970s that are currently taking the computer and gaming world by storm. While Tiny Keyboard Shop is sleek and modern, it is also a testament to Silicon Valley’s roots when computing mostly involved hobbyists and tinkerers.

Owner “Tiny” and manager Spencer Lin oversee the small but mighty shop in San Pedro Square, which opened in July 2022.

“It’s almost as important as the shoes that you walk in (or) the mattress that you sleep in,” said Lin on a recent Wednesday inside the store about the products. “Why not invest in something that improves the quality of life that takes up so much time?”

We met with Lin to talk about what makes the devices sing, why the hobby has become so popular and the craziest trade he’s ever heard of for a keyboard.

Q What’s the most important part of the keyboard?

A Keycaps (are) a big topic within the keyboard space. For the most part, they’re just essentially colorful pieces of plastic that serve like the paint job or the makeup of your keyboard build. Some people consider it to be the most fun or the most appealing part of it because typically this is an escape key but it doesn’t have to say escape, it can have this little icon, it could be blue, it could be pink. So the nice part about the keyboard and with keycaps is that you can customize it to be your very own.

Q How would you say the keyboard community has evolved?

A This hobby exploded more during COVID because everyone was at home and gaming board work from home stipends from their companies. It just kind of came together. There’s actually a subreddit dedicated to buy, sell (and) trade. I used to be avidly addicted to it. I would have it refresh every five seconds. And maybe like 25 to 30 percent of those people (on the subreddit) are based in the Bay. I usually became friends with them.

Q What’s the wildest story you know about in the keyboard community?

A I remember in 2021 there was this specific brand and model of a keyboard that someone actually traded for a car. The value at the time (of the car) was about five or six grand. It wasn’t like a great, new car, but it was still a car. So this just kind of shows how ridiculous the hobby can be.

Q What kind of people are coming into your store?

A I would say maybe 55 to 60 percent are people coming in either building their first (keyboard) or knowing that they wanna build their first one or they’re entirely new to it because they’re walking around here. And then I would say maybe 10 to 15 percent are the people who are hardcore. The rest are trying to dip their toes into it.

Parents bring their kids… I think there was like a sixth or seventh-grader. They got an A on their report card and they were able to buy something.

Q What determines the sound of the keyboard?

A The size of the keyboard, the material of the keyboard, the insulation of the keyboard, the way that the switches and components are mounted inside of it because a few years ago, it was just screwed into it. But then having that screw and tightness and metal and metal contact made it very rigid and (carry a) very dense noise. And then maybe three or four years ago, a lot of designers started making these like gaskets where it uses these rubber strips or rings that essentially dampen and also soften the feel of it because you’re not putting metal on metal contact.

SPENCER LIN PROFILE

Age: 29

School: UC Santa Cruz

Origins: Started getting interested in computer keyboards in 2019

A tendency to get obsessed: Lin said that while he wasn’t into mechanical keyboards as a child, he got a taste for tech when his dad would take him and his brother to Fry’s Electronics or Best Buy — and he admitted he has a tendency to go down a “rabbit hole” when it comes to certain interests.

Crossing paths: Lin met owner “Tiny” while at his former job — and decided to make mechanical keyboards his full-time gig after helping out the shop with some side work.

FIVE THINGS ABOUT LIN AND HIS SHOP

• The keyboards aren’t cheap — they’ll usually run you around $250 to $350 — but Lin says they will likely last a lifetime.
• There are literally endless ways to customize the mechanical keyboards, from the base that the device is made out of, the keycaps and the “switches,” which determine how much resistance occurs when the keys are hit.
• The industry can get so specific that there are even different keycap shapes — some offering a rounded feel while others are more flat.
• Tiny Keyboard Shop saw a big jump in popularity when a TikTok video was posted last December featuring a store tour.
• While the shop has a small square footage, Lin said there’s a possibility of moving into a larger space in downtown in 2024.

In a turn of events that could have major consequences for an extension already struggling with exploding prices and timeline delays, an independent assessment set to be released this month from federal officials may peg the project’s cost even higher than the agency’s $12.2 billion estimate, the Valley Transportation Authority’s chief megaproject officer told The Mercury News in an exclusive interview this week.

“I don’t want to ever be sugarcoating things for our (VTA Board of Directors),” said the agency’s Tom Maguire. “I think there’s a chance the number is over $12.2 billion dollars, but I don’t know how much higher.”

The forthcoming risk assessment, overseen by the Federal Transit Administration, serves as a third-party study that shows a project’s progression and points out potential issues when local agencies request funding. VTA is seeking to get about half the project covered by the FTA, with the rest paid by state dollars and local tax measures. Maguire and federal officials spent three days this month going over the BART plans — and the chief megaproject officer said the continuing rise in construction costs leads him to believe the total may increase.

If the FTA raises the price tag, it would be the fourth time local and federal agencies have increased estimates from the original 2014 projection of $4.7 billion. In October, VTA announced its most recent cost jump and an expected completion date of 2036 — a decade later than originally expected. The announcement sparked the VTA Board to create an oversight committee investigating issues facing the project.

“I think if there is one common theme with the cost escalation, it is that the more time we wait to get a shovel in the ground, the more expensive it gets,” said Maguire. “We feel urgently with this — to answer for the voters who have been asking about this for 20 years. … I don’t mean to poo-poo a billion dollars. But it only gets worse if we don’t get started. And we are ready to get started.”

Members of the VTA’s board said that while a further cost increase to the project could present funding difficulties, the importance of creating a “ring of transit” around the Bay Area is paramount. The extension would create six miles of new track — including a subterranean tunnel underneath San Jose — looping BART service from the north part of the city to downtown and then up to Santa Clara at its Caltrain terminal.

“I think what the federal government is trying to make sure is that we’re being conservative as we can be when we’re pricing projects,” said Santa Clara County Supervisor Cindy Chavez, who also serves on the extension’s oversight group. “Because we want to be open and transparent with the public and also progress with the construction.”

Palo Alto Councilmember Pat Burt said that he doesn’t expect the federal government’s new number to be too much higher than $12.2 billion — but that any increase may present funding challenges.

“The FTA has treated this program as one of their top transit projects in the country,” said Burt, a VTA board member who is leading the oversight committee. “They’ve repeatedly found it to be an important and worthwhile investment. And they’re committed to it. However, we still have uncertainties.”

The rising construction costs track with what Ken Simonson is seeing. The chief economist at the Associated General Contractors of America said the prices for materials necessary for transportation projects, namely concrete, have jumped significantly — a unique trend that’s continued during the pandemic. In addition, electrical equipment such as switch gears and transformers are experiencing “unprecedented” delays, he said.

Simonson also attributes the rising prices to the national competition to obtain materials and recruit transportation expertise, as cities across the country aim to beef up their infrastructure.

“The fact that so many agencies have been doing expansions and modernization (is) putting pressure on the same suppliers,” said Simonson.

That challenge is reflected in the federal government’s most recent update this month on the BART extension, which states that they are “concerned” about two vacant positions for the project — program director and construction director — blaming “high demand for transit professionals in the U.S. and especially in the California market.”

The report states, “Due to frequent turnover and vacancies in key (BART San Jose extension) positions, (the Project Management Oversight Contractor) is concerned about the lack of succession planning and inadequate transition periods in dealing with attrition and turnover.”

Maguire said a “national recruitment effort is underway, and we hope to have two directors on board by the middle of 2024.”

If the federal estimate does outpace VTA’s, it wouldn’t be the first time. A previous risk assessment from 2021 found the project would cost $9.1 billion compared to the local agency’s $6.9 billion. A recent auditor general’s report found VTA publicly dismissed those projections while internally using higher estimates to apply for federal funding.

In a scathing report published earlier this month, Auditor General Scott Johnson found that VTA’s staff had engaged in a “breach of transparency” with the agency’s governing board and the public over issues concerning the project.

Scott’s findings have ruffled feathers from some of the agency’s board members.

“We on the board are really pissed,” said Sudhanshu “Suds” Jain, a councilmember from Santa Clara and a member of the project’s watchdog committee, about the auditor general’s findings. “The lack of transparency is just appalling to me.”

Newsom this month announced a host of new law enforcement measures to crack down on a growing retail theft problem that stops short of changes to Proposition 47, the 2014 criminal justice reform measure that lowers penalties for drug and property crimes. Critics have blamed Prop 47 and other such measures for a rash in retail thefts.

Newsom shared the off-the-cuff story in the moments before the start of a Zoom meeting about a mental health bond measure he’s supporting. Video of Newsom’s story had been viewed hundreds of thousands of times by mid-afternoon.

In a Zoom call about a mental health proposition, Gov. Gavin Newsom says he was at a Target and saw someone walk out without paying.

He asked a worker why the person steals and they blamed the Governor before looking at him twice and recognizing him.

“I was like, why I am… pic.twitter.com/zpLFtNwiSZ

— Gabriel Lorenzo Greschler (@ggreschler) January 31, 2024

The governor said he was shopping at a Target store — he didn’t say where — and waiting in line with his shopping cart when he witnessed another shopper walk right out without bothering to pay.

“As we’re checking out, the woman says, ‘Oh he’s just walking out, he didn’t pay for that,’ I said, ‘Why didn’t you stop him?’” Newsom said in the video. “She goes, ‘Oh, the governor.’ Swear to God, true story, on my mom’s grave. ‘The governor lowered the threshold, there’s no accountability.’ I said, ‘That’s just not true.’”

Newsom said he explained to the clerk that while Prop 47 raised the threshold at which property theft becomes a felony to $950, that amount remains lower than it is in all but nine other states.

“By the way, it’s the 10th toughest in America. Look it up,” Newsom said. “No one gives a damn about that.”

But he said that the clerk was unmoved.

“She said, ‘Well, we still don’t stop them because of the governor,’” Newsom said. Only then did she recognize her customer. “And then she goes — she looks at me twice and then she freaks out — she calls everyone over, wants to take photos.”

But the governor wasn’t feeling the love.

“I’m like, ‘No, we’re not taking a photo, we’re having a conversation,’” Newsom said. “‘Where’s your manager? How are you blaming the governor?’ And it was $380 later, and I was like, ‘Why am I spending $380, everyone can walk the hell right out?’ “

Target had no immediate response Wednesday.

The apparent rise in retail theft has been difficult to quantify. Retailers complain that they feel helpless to report the crimes because police aren’t eager to respond to misdemeanor-level thefts, and store staff don’t want to endanger themselves confronting criminals. Many retail companies instruct their staff to not try to stop the thieves over worries about safety. Law enforcement officials acknowledge low-level thefts aren’t a top priority but say they can’t respond if no one makes a report.

The state’s Little Hoover Commission, a state watchdog agency, has been taking testimony about the state’s retail theft problem.

Newsom’s office had nothing more to add about his personal story Wednesday and would not say when or where the encounter occurred. But his office said last year the governor announced the largest-ever investment to combat organized retail crime in the state’s history, a 310% annual increase in spending on operations targeting organized retail crime.

Newsom has defended his support of Prop 47, arguing that the state’s raised threshold for felony theft is lower than the $2,500 threshold in Texas. His office also pointed to a CapitalOne report out last month that said retail theft in California is 17% lower than the average among states. But the report noted that the cities most affected by organized retail theft in the U.S. are Los Angeles, San Francisco and Oakland, while Sacramento is tied for eighth with Chicago.

Prop. 47 critics said the clerk was right to blame the governor.

Jessica Millan Patterson, chairwoman of the California Republican Party, gave a “shoutout to this store clerk who told the governor to his face that he and his pro-criminal policies are to blame for surging crime in California.”

“Criminals don’t fear consequences for their actions,” Patterson said, “and faced with that reality when visiting Target, Newsom chose to lash out at a store clerk for not stopping retail theft instead of taking accountability for his own failures.”

“Everybody could agree that we want workers to be paid fairly,” Councilmember Dev Davis, who helped negotiate the deal, said in an interview on Wednesday. “We want unpaid judgments to be satisfied.”

Wage theft can include a variety of violations, from not allowing workers to take breaks to paying less than minimum wage. The ordinance allows violators to pay the wages in question, or appeal the issue to the city.

Several compromises were made on the ordinance over the last few weeks in discussions between the city’s labor and business blocs, including the removal of exemptions that would have allowed contractors and developers under union agreements to avoid the rule.

“The passing of the ordinance is significant and important for workers in San Jose,” said Jean Cohen, who oversees the South Bay Labor Council, in an interview. “And it’s going to really elevate our city’s ability to ensure that people can live here and work here safely.”

According to city data, workers in Santa Clara County have lost $46 million from wage theft-related violations since 2001. Mountain View, Milpitas, and Sunnyvale have all passed their own versions of a wage theft ordinance. California’s labor commissioner oversees enforcement.

In recent weeks, the new rule has sparked consternation from some developers and contractors who claimed it would stifle an already difficult construction environment hindered by high interest rates and expensive materials costs. They also said many of the violators who have unpaid wage judgments fall under the 10,000 square-foot threshold. Industry leaders signed onto a Jan. 5 letter that said the basis for the ordinance — the Silvery Towers controversy — was a unique incident whose perpetrator faced consequences. The contractor is now in prison.

On Wednesday, construction executive Jim Salata, one of the letter’s signatories, described the new rule as “totally unnecessary and a colossal waste of time.”

“The facts don’t warrant that this was on the table at all,” he said in an interview.

On Tuesday, city staff explained that the ordinance needed to have a narrow scope initially — citing the square footage exemption for buildings under 10,000 square feet — but signaled it could eventually evolve to cover all projects regardless of size.

“The type of work we’re looking at below 10,000 square-feet could impact small businesses and residential modifications that would trigger a lot more permit breadth,” said Public Works Director Matt Loesch during Tuesday’s council meeting. “”And if we’re going to develop the system to monitor it, we should built it at the 10,000 square-foot level, understand it, review it, see if it is effective — and if need be, modify it in the future.

The city used $2 million in state funding last fall to clear roughly 200 people with tents and RVs that cropped up along the river in recent years and transfer its unhoused residents to interim and permanent housing sites — and officials say they don’t want the money to go to waste with people repopulating the area. Homeless advocates blasted the proposal as “cruel,” but some local residents celebrated the move, saying they’ve been unable to use the public trail because of trash or tents blocking the path.

“This is a public trail here along the river that should be accessible to everyone,” Mayor Matt Mahan said at a news conference on Saturday, joined by Councilmembers Omar Torres and Dev Davis. “But people simply didn’t feel safe. It was completely blocked by trash, I even came down here and saw chickens running around.”

The new ordinance would impact the riverfront from Woz Way to Julian Street along Highway 87, an area that includes both Adobe and Zoom’s headquarters with overpasses crisscrossing throughout the waterways. The council’s rules committee will take up the proposal on Jan. 24.

This week’s proposal would be the first time the city considers an outright ban along a specific slice of its waterways — and officials signaled that the policy could become larger in scope at other river sections if it works.

“Creating no-return zones starts here at the Guadalupe River trail,” said Councilmember Davis. “Eventually, I hope it will spread everywhere across the city. We want to eradicate encampments and find places for people to live safely.”

If the ordinance passes, San Jose would become part of a large list of cities that have limited where encampments can be. Oakland, Santa Cruz and Milpitas, and cities outside the Bay Area, including Los Angeles and Sacramento have all passed prohibitions as public opinion about how much power local government should have over homelessness appears to be swinging towards support of stricter rules.

Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court decided to take up a case that could have major consequences for how cities like San Jose can respond to homelessness. The high court will review a 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that has mostly barred cities from clearing encampments if they can’t offer individuals shelter.

The latest move is an indication that Mayor Mahan is moving full speed ahead on his stricter stance towards encampments, which has become a key part of his strategy for combatting homelessness along with trying to build up the city’s interim housing stock. It isn’t the only restriction being considered — this month the City Council will also consider a rule prohibiting RVs from parking near schools, a prohibition that previously included encampments but has since been struck from the proposal.

All the while, the mayor and the City Council are pushing for more housing options that offer what they consider a stepping stone towards permanent housing, including tiny-home-style shelters, hotel rooms and safe-parking sites for RVs and other vehicles.

The mayor expressed concerns in December that the effort wasn’t moving fast enough after the city’s housing goal had to be pushed ahead six months in 2023. To meet the benchmark it needs to add roughly 500 more units by the end of June. The wait time for new placement has also risen to about 400 people, according to estimates from the city late last year, pushing Mahan to now consider sanctioned encampments as San Jose’s lowest barrier form of shelter.

The city has cleared encampments along its rivers in the past: Last year, a portion of Coyote Creek was swept for a construction project that aims to prevent flooding in the area, impacting about 200 people. That action, however, was in response to the project’s federal guidelines.

On Saturday, San Jose’s new proposal saw pushback from some of the region’s homelessness advocates.

Tristia Bauman, an attorney for the Law Foundation of Silicon Valley, called the effort “cruel and futile.”

In a statement, she wrote, “People are living in encampments because they don’t have better options. People need safe, stable, and dignified places to live, and relentless pursuit of that solution will end encampments. We waste time, money, and opportunity on bans of poor people from public space. That has never and will never work to end homelessness. It only hurts.”

But local resident Loureen Murphy said the new rule is necessary to preserve the city’s trail. She used to walk along the trail with her dog regularly, but in the last several years was discouraged by friends who worried for her safety.

“I was super happy to hear about this renewal effort,” said Murphy, who also serves as the president of the Guadalupe Washington Neighborhood Association. “I’ve heard rumors that salmon have returned to our waterways. Renewal of our natural resources, the great gift nature gave our area. And renewal of this wonderful trail that our city invested so much in and had gone into such a terrible state.”

If passed, the ordinance would prevent developers and contractors from moving forward on San Jose construction projects if they have unresolved violations regarding unpaid wages. The rule will go before the City Council on Jan. 23.

“The construction industry is plagued with wage theft more than some other industries,” said David Bini, executive director of Santa Clara and San Benito counties’ Building and Construction Trades Council, which represents over 35,000 workers. “It’s almost expected it will happen to you.”

Wage theft covers a variety of employer rule-breaking, including paying less than minimum wage or not allowing workers to take breaks, according to the state’s Department of Industrial Relations. Violations can be appealed or resolved by paying out the wages in question. The state’s labor commissioner oversees enforcement.

In Santa Clara County, over 12,000 construction workers have seen their paychecks cut short by $46 million since 2001, according to data cited by the city.

The issue was thrust into the public spotlight in 2017 with accusations of wage theft at Silvery Towers, a pair of downtown San Jose high-rises. The contractor was later sent to prison after overseeing forced labor conditions at the project site.

The ordinance would prohibit wage violators from receiving certificates of occupancy, which certify that properties are safe to live in and compliant with city laws. It won’t apply to developers and contractors who enter into an agreement with a union over the project site’s working conditions.

Exemptions are also available for companies offering prevailing wages under state law and those working on projects of under 10,000 square feet, with city staff claiming that the rule would be too onerous for companies working on small renovations or remodeling.

A number of South Bay cities already have passed similar ordinances since 2021, including Milpitas, Sunnyvale and Mountain View.

But the new rule is also facing fierce resistance from some developers and contractors who contend that it wouldn’t target the area’s most egregious violators of wage laws, could stifle development in an area that’s already expensive to build in, and is a power grab by labor forces.

Its critics contend that many of the unpaid-wage judgments come from smaller companies that would be exempt from the rule. But labor leaders say the ordinance is necessary to protect workers on large-scale projects.

“This would be, if passed, just another obstacle,” said Jon Ball, a retired local construction executive. “Already there are so many obstacles in place for someone getting a project going.”

Ball, along with a group of developers and contractors, signed onto a Jan. 5 letter that criticized the ordinance and even raised the specter of a possible lawsuit if the City Council adopts the new rules. The letter also described the “Silvery Towers” incident as not reflective of the construction industry as a whole and one that resulted in punishment for those connected to it.

Since 2018, there have been 59 unpaid-wage judgments in Santa Clara County, with 23 of those located in San Jose amounting to over $1 million, according to state data.

The rule has enjoyed general support among councilmembers, though questions have been raised about the amount of outreach conducted to contractors and developers.

“The Silvery Towers issue really made it clear that there can be egregious wage theft and they can happen without anyone knowing and the city having a direct possibility of recourse,” said District 6 Councilmember Dev Davis. “It made us more aware that wage theft is something that can and does happen in our city — and what can we do to send a clear statement that we want workers to get paid for the work that they do.”

A proposed ordinance would require new San Jose developments to install an EV charging outlet next to every resident parking space. Elected officials say the new requirements will help encourage EV ownership among renters, who usually don’t have easy access to charging compared to single-family homeowners. EV drivers in apartment buildings generally rely on public charging infrastructure, an inconvenience that Councilmember David Cohen says is a barrier to the widespread adoption of the cars as the city seeks to go carbon neutral by the end of the decade.

“We know that the widespread adoption of electric vehicles is important to decarbonize our transportation infrastructure,” said Cohen. “There’s a feeling that EVs are out of reach for renters or lower-income people. I think we can overcome that.”

The proposal, which would impact developments with four or more units of housing, will come before the City Council on Jan. 23. If passed, developers would need to install low power Level 2 charging outlets at the apartment’s parking spaces. City officials estimated a six-hour charge on the outlets would offer around 40 to 50 miles of range for an electric vehicle. At least 20 percent of guest parking would need the outlets.

The outlets don’t offer as much energy as more powerful Level 2 chargers or Level 3, known as superchargers, but were chosen by the city to cut down on impact to the electrical grid. California is currently dealing with questions surrounding its grid capacity as communities continue to electrify their infrastructure. San Jose is also currently exploring a municipally-owned electric utility that would service infrastructure in the downtown and northern part of the city.

Barry Cinnamon, owner of Los Gatos-based solar-rooftop business Cinnamon Energy Systems, said the Level 1 chargers shouldn’t be too onerous to the city’s grid if the system is built to handle surges in use.

“It is pretty manageable,” he said about the new law’s impact. “If you have 100 people all at once, that adds up a lot, so there may be chargers that have some sort of intelligence. Those are possible technical solutions.”

According to city estimates, installation of the outlets would amount to roughly three-fourths to one percent of the total cost of construction for a developer. Residents with reserved parking spaces will be charged directly through their utility bill, said officials, while costs associated with public spaces will be decided through the building’s owners.

The change comes as San Jose drivers increasingly are turning towards EVs and the city tries to build a climate-conscious infrastructure.

According to city estimates, around 30 percent of new cars registered in San Jose since the spring of 2022 were electric. Data from the state shows Santa Clara County residents as one of the top purchasers of EVs. By 2035, California will prohibit the sale of all gasoline-powered cars.

In November 2021, San Jose and a handful of other cities committed to becoming carbon neutral by 2030, meaning it would emit the same amount of carbon dioxide that it offsets through the generation of solar electricity and EV ownership.

San Jose City Council on Tuesday unanimously approved new rules that allow marijuana stores to participate in a payment plan and continue to be a registered business if they fall behind on taxes or fees. It’s the latest change by the city’s elected officials to help ease the financial burden on San Jose’s 15 weed shops, which provide a lucrative stream of tax revenue in a metropolis that has historically managed a tight budget for its population of nearly a million residents.

But those marijuana tax dollars have been trending downwards in recent years: City officials expect pot to bring in about $15 million this year, a decrease from 2023 when the businesses brought in $15.8 million and $17.7 million the year before.

Some cannabis shops in the city also appear to be facing financial difficulties. City officials said Herbs, a store on Parrot Street, recently fell behind on paying its taxes and fees. The business did not renew its license to operate in the city, according to Wendy Sollazzi of the police department’s cannabis division. The store is marked as “temporarily closed” on Google and a phone number for the business was disconnected.

In November, the city lowered the amount that weed businesses could be fined for violations, dropping the penalties for a first offense from $1,200 to $250, though more egregious rule-breaking still carries hefty fees.

Jay Michaels, who has worked in the industry for decades mainly focused on cannabis genomics, said running a profitable marijuana dispensary in California has become increasingly difficult.

“It comes down to rubbing nickels together to make it work,” he said. “Even if you have everything working in your favor.”

In addition to illegal dealers that can offer lower prices for consumers, cannabis shop operators have blamed ongoing restraints at the federal level, exorbitant taxes and wholesale prices declining as major challenges to the industry. Purchasing pot in San Jose carries a 10 percent city tax, a 15 percent state excise tax and a local sales tax that amounts to 9.375 percent.

“The biggest problem is that the industry is over-taxed,” said Richard De La Rosa, compliance officer for Canna Culture and a city-registered lobbyist. “It’s been horrible on business.” De La Rosa said his dispensary on Charter Park Drive paid nearly $140,000 in annual fees to the city.

Sollazzi of the police department’s cannabis division said the city is reviewing the annual operating fee and changes could come before the city’s public safety and finance committee by February.

The mayor is racing against the clock to meet his goal of getting 1,000 new housing units up and running before June 30 of next year, an objective that was hindered by a battle with other councilmembers during the summer over how homelessness funds were to be allocated and then pushed out six months after city staff said an end-of-year timeline wasn’t feasible.

Since his inauguration, Mahan has gone all in on interim-style solutions, which he argues offer the best opportunity to reduce the unsheltered homeless population in San Jose by offering the right balance of stability for those seeking permanent housing and scalability when compared to permanent options. There’s general support for the strategy among the City Council, though some critics of the solution argue it doesn’t chip away at the problem of housing affordability.

Since the start of the year, the city has added 275 units of tiny home-style shelter, safe vehicle parking, and hotel rooms — along with 207 permanent supportive housing spots, according to the latest figures provided by the mayor’s office. That means San Jose has just six months to build out roughly what it completed in the past year if it’s to meet the mayor’s pledge.

“We need to treat this like a crisis,” Mahan said in an interview on Wednesday. “People are dying on the streets today. We have over 4,000 people who have nowhere else to go just in San Jose. And treating that like a crisis means that we don’t over-engineer and over-design solutions. We don’t take 18 months to stand up a site. (We) don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. I have real concerns and frustration. We’re still overcomplicating things.”

Despite the worries about numbers, certain measures indicate the interim strategy may be having an impact: The most recent count of unsheltered homeless in San Jose in May showed an 11% drop compared to last year.

But the interim sites have a sizeable waitlist — around 400 people are trying to get a spot, according to city officials. The city currently operates about 500 tiny home-style shelters, 200 hotel rooms and 42 safe parking spots. Another four tiny home sites, as well as one expansion — totaling 788 spots — are currently in the pipeline.

More recently, Mahan has tried clipping bureaucratic red tape to speed up the construction of interim housing by no longer requiring certain land-use provisions, building codes and procurement decisions. As an even more immediate solution, he is now suggesting that the city create sanctioned encampments around San Jose.

While the plans are still in the early stages, the mayor said he envisions a site or two with around 100 spots each where homeless residents could put tents on top of wooden pallets paired with security — a plan that he acknowledges will hinge on “political will.” He said he was inspired by San Diego’s recent opening of a sanctioned encampment with 400 spots.

“The bottom line is we need speed and scale,” Mahan said. “We need a lot of placements. And we need them quickly.”

The mayor’s efforts have hit speed bumps this year. In June, he sought to shift funding that had traditionally gone toward permanent housing to his interim strategy but didn’t get as much as he originally pressed for. And when city staff extended out their housing goal, they blamed land access issues, among other roadblocks delaying the effort.

“Those were always really difficult objectives to get accomplished by the end of December,” said Jim Shannon, the city’s budget director, about the homelessness goal. “It was always going to be a huge challenge.”

“The nature of these efforts is that they’re complicated and multifaceted. And they require many partners,” said Deputy City Manager Omar Passons.

There have also been political successes for Mahan, namely the city’s ability to convince concerned workers at a Valley Transportation Authority yard that they should support a nearby outlay of 200 tiny homes provided by Gov. Gavin Newsom. But timing, again, may become a snag after the Sacramento Bee reported in October that the governor’s tiny home plans were delayed.

Questions have also been raised about the cost of the interim shelter strategy. The city is currently spending $36.4 million on its portfolio of interim options — with money coming from one-time general fund allocations, the state and tax dollars from Measure E.

But in just four years, costs to the general fund could reach $70 million, according to the budget director’s preliminary estimates. That’s roughly $15 million more than a projection offered in June.

The mayor argues the costs are worth it, considering the price of human suffering on the streets and the strain placed on emergency services that are routinely called to unmanaged encampments — along with hopes that external funding can be found in the coming years.

The council is also exploring ways to reduce spending on future projects, including a forthcoming safe parking site in the Berryessa neighborhood that elected officials recently expressed skepticism over its nearly $20 million opening costs.

First opened in 1960 by George Bumb Sr., the flea market features hundreds of stalls selling a variety of products and is a staple of the East San Jose neighborhood.

Redevelopment of the 61.5-acre site has been in the works since 2007 because of San Jose’s BART extension project, putting into limbo the future of thousands of flea market sellers. More recently, the city has moved ahead with plans for a large-scale apartment complex with thousands of units, though last month developers signaled they wanted to scale down the project in response to market pressures.

In a decision announced Friday by the Bumb family, the flea market vendors will be given a one-year warning about the site’s closure no sooner than Jan. 1, 2025 — giving the hawkers a little over two years to plan for their future. The city is currently working on plans for where the flea market vendors can relocate, though no final agreement has been made.

“I’m very happy that we’ve got more time and more certainty,” said District 4 Councilmember David Cohen about Friday’s announcement. “There was a threat of (the closure) hanging over (the vendors’) heads that made them anxious.”

Erik Schoennauer, a land use consultant for the Berryessa residential development, said he had worked with the councilmember on trying to offer more time for the vendors to relocate.

“We’re hoping that it comforts the vendors and that flea market operations can continue for quite some time,” he said. “And that they have more time to plan for the future.”

The market is currently open four days a week — Wednesday, Friday and during the weekend — and features around 400 vendors with thousands of customers, according to Roberto Gonzalez, president of the Berryessa Flea Market Association.