Mayor Pro Tem Eleassia Davis Owns the Tracy Homeless Shelter Failure

September 12, 2023

Homelessness remains the top issue of concern for Tracy residents, yet the city still cannot get out of its own way to build a temporary housing project. The Tracy Press’ recent September 1st article, “Shelter Delayed again as city rejects second round of construction bids” states that this latest rejection will set back the process a year if not more. The city started this process 3 years ago by choosing the structure to be built at 370 Arbor Avenue. The person most involved and most responsible for this failure at City Hall: Mayor Pro Tem Eleassia Davis. 


Davis is Chairperson of the city’s Homeless Advisory Committee, a committee which she has served on since March 2021. She is the highest-ranking city official overseeing the homelessness issue in Tracy. 


During her Mayoral campaign, Davis commented on how poorly the city and her other city councilmembers were handling the homeless issue. She promised to implement her “Community-First” Plan to tackle the homeless issue where her counterparts had failed. 

In short, Davis was going to fix Tracy’s homeless issue if elected mayor.


As we know, she lost the mayoral race, but she achieved the two next best things – title of Mayor Pro Tem and Chairperson of the Homeless Advisory Committee. She further positioned herself as the homeless czar by joining alliances with hapless Councilman Mateo Bedolla, the same man who cost her the mayoral election. She even worked to get him assigned on the Homeless Advisory Committee. The alliance has given her majority control over the city council and city itself. Yet, here are the headlines regarding the homeless shelter development –

It doesn’t take one reading between the lines to figure out that a) a lot of money has been thrown at the ‘development’ of the homeless shelter and b) a lot of nothing has been done. And, no, let’s not get too excited about the County of San Joaquin helping to close the homeless shelter funding gap. Davis had nothing to do with this happening. It is all Supervisor Rickman’s doing, as he runs for re-election. He’s already claiming credit for the move in true Rickman fashion and why not? It’s an easy political victory for him. It’s not the case for Davis, where Tracy residents are still dealing with the homeless issue. 

Mayor Pro-Tem Davis is positioned to accomplish everything she promised in her “Community-First” Plan. So why hasn’t she?


There are a few things to speculate here. First, she is dealing with incompetent city staffers. There is definite truth in this statement, as Tracy suffers from the incompetence of department managers. Perhaps it’s because the city lacks a City Manager and is now being led by an absent City Attorney, enjoying her lattes in her multi-million-dollar home in tony San Ramon. But real leaders get over these hurdles to accomplish the dirty work. Afterall, the Mayor Pro Tem Davis has majority control over the council, so she could direct staff accordingly. Yet, she does not.

The second thing to speculate is that homelessness and the development of the homeless shelter is not pressing for Davis, as she lives in south Tracy, far removed from where the true problems lie.


Homelessness is a northside problem. The newer, nicer communities in the southside aren’t being subject to the day-to-day issue generated by the homeless. Out of sight, out of mind as the old saying goes. The southside residents are worried about their aquatic center, new parks, new fire stations, and new schools. Their biggest problems are dated roads that need expansion or repaving. The older, working-class neighborhoods of north Tracy have bigger issues – drug addicts, homeless, diesel truck traffic, noise issues, etc. You name it and it can be found in north Tracy.


Davis promised that she would solve the Tracy homeless problem where others have not. So far, she is failing in that promise.