The lack of housing stability and lack of affordable housing for individuals and families is the key driver of homelessness in the City. In August 2016, the City and County of San Francisco created a new department, the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing (HSH) to align its approach and significant financial investment into the homelessness crisis.
Background
What is Homelessness Prevention and Supportive Housing?
HSH’s five-year Strategic Framework includes the following programs:
Coordinated Entry System and the ONE System, a by-name expanded homelessness management information system and is a national best-practice which organizes the new the Homelessness Response System from a series of programs to a data-informed system.
Street Outreach connects those living outside with the Homelessness Response System and voluntary services.
Problem Solving provides opportunities to prevent people from entering the Homelessness Response System and to redirect people who can resolve their homelessness without the need for ongoing support.
Temporary Shelters provide temporary places for people to stay while accessing other services and seeking housing solutions. Temporary Shelter include traditional shelters, Navigation Centers, Stabilization Beds, and Transitional Housing.
Housing provides permanent solutions to homelessness through short, medium or longer-term subsidies and housing placements. This may include time-limited supports such as Rapid Rehousing and Rent Subsidies or longer-term solutions such as Permanent Supportive Housing (affordable housing with support services).
The Housing Ladder offers opportunities for residents of Permanent Supportive Housing or Rapid Rehousing to move outside of the Homelessness Response System (Moving On Initiative) while still receiving financial support to maintain their housing.
How are Homelessness and Community Stabilization Linked?
Homelessness is a symptom of a larger problem – a lack of affordable housing for our most vulnerable residents. The increasing presence of homelessness indicates an instability among low-income households in our community. Homeless prevention, shelter and supportive housing provide resources for our most vulnerable communities to ensure that they have shelter and services and can ultimately end their experience of homelessness.
While we typically think of residents who are housed experiencing displacement, people experiencing homelessness are also forced to move from their living space. As development occurred in areas of the City where people experiencing homelessness have historically resided, they have been displaced to other parts of the City. This recent, increased visibility in neighborhoods unaccustomed to seeing people experiencing homelessness has triggered increased friction between housed and unhoused residents in the City.
Key Trends
Communities experience a sharp increase in homelessness when median rent accounts for 32 percent or more of median income.
San Francisco remains well above this threshold for rent affordability, with median rent accounting for 39 percent of median income on average through 2017 and 2018.1
Between January 2017 and January 2019, there was a 17 percent increase in overall homelessness with a significant increase in adult homelessness and chronic homelessness in the City.
Family homelessness stayed flat over this time period and youth and Veteran homelessness decreased.44 Communities surrounding San Francisco experienced increases in the range of 40-50 percent or higher.
On January 24, 2019, 8,011 people were found to be experiencing homelessness in San Francisco.2
Since 2016, 650 Temporary Shelter beds, including six Navigation Centers, have been opened with over 700 more shelter beds in the pipeline.
Since 2016, 550 units of Permanent Supportive Housing have been added with approximately 1,300 more in the pipeline
as well as in Rapid Rehousing exits and Problem Solving.
What’s Happening Now to Respond to Homelessness?
The City is engaged in numerous efforts to prevent homelessness and provide exits from homelessness. The City’s goal is to end family homelessness, reduce chronic homelessness by 50 percent, and reduce youth homelessness by 50 percent by December 2022. The Department recently improved the City’s response to street homelessness and launched the city-wide Coordinated Entry System. The City is now can offer shelter to any family experiencing homelessness which is considered a “functional” end to family street homelessness.
HSH is simultaneously building more shelter to meet the Mayor’s goal of 1000 additional shelter beds by June of 2020. HSH is also working with City partners to develop 1,300 more units of Permanent Supportive Housing and expanding other homelessness interventions such as Rapid Rehousing. This effort will be supported by Assembly Bill 101, which passed by the California legislature and allows for homeless shelters to be approved by-right.
With Mayor Breed’s leadership, the FY19-20 budget invested $5.2 Million towards Problem Solving. Problem Solving (prevention and diversion) provides opportunities to prevent people from entering the Homelessness Response System and to redirect people who can resolve their homelessness without the need for ongoing support. Recent Point-In-Time count data require an increased focus on homelessness diversion at the moment of homeless crisis to quickly rehouse people experiencing homelessness without long-term reliance on the Homelessness Response System.
The Planning Commission approved a proposal on August 29, 2019 to open a parking lot near the Balboa Park BART Station as the first-of-its-kind Vehicle Triage Center which is a safe place for people to park, receive services and access and to sleep in their vehicles. The City’s 2019 homeless Point in Time count found two-thirds of the increase in unsheltered homelessness in San Francisco was driven by people living in their vehicles.
Issues Related to Homelessness Prevention and Supportive Housing
Despite the City’s efforts, homelessness continues to grow in San Francisco. While the Department’s work is advancing with some key goals already met, the work is being done in the context of a regional and state-wide housing and affordability crisis leading to increased rates of new homelessness in our community. HSH data indicates that for everyone person whose homelessness is resolved, another three people are becoming homeless in their place.
Until more federal, state and local support is available to develop housing, San Francisco must invest in prevention and diversion strategies, expanding temporary shelter and short, medium- and long-term housing interventions. Addressing homelessness requires services and shelter today, but it also requires a comprehensive and innovative approach to housing solutions for the future.
For Future Consideration
The ideas for future consideration that have the potential to increase community stability in San Francisco are described below. They provide a starting point for agencies, decision-makers, and community members to explore stabilization efforts and identify critical pathways forward. Based on preliminary information, staff is qualifying these ideas according to the type of task, scale of resources and level of complexity to underscore that any of these ideas would require time and additional resources not currently identified. These are not City commitments or recommendations, rather informed ideas that will require careful vetting and analysis as to their reach, resource needs, feasibility, unintended consequences, legal implications, and racial and social equity considerations.
Explore additional innovative housing approaches
There is an opportunity to explore additional temporary and/or creative space to accommodate unhoused residents, such as non-traditional housing in terms of scale, materials and construction and temporal conditions. Offering vacant, underutilized, publicly-owned space such as a parking lot for RVs is one example of an innovative approach to shelter (but not housing) needs. Additional opportunities to integrate supportive housing into the City’s affordable housing preservation programs is another approach to explore as is changing approval processes and timelines for development of affordable and permanent supportive housing.
| Type of Response | Mitigation, Prevention |
|---|---|
| Type of Task | Funding, Legislation, Policy Implementation
|
| Resource | Extensive funding (the kind typically required for capital investments) and staff time would be required
|
| Complexity | Medium – generally some legislation and/or some change of and existing program, and two to three agencies involved
|
| Timing | Long Term (more than 5 years)
|
| Geographic Scale | Citywide |
| Partners | Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing (HSH), Planning, Mayor's Office of Housing and Community Development (MOHCD), community partners |
| Key Priority | Yes - Potential City Programs and Policies |
| Benefit | This can help streamline housing production of and increase the number of housing options for people experiencing homelessness. |
| Challenge | This will take time and resources to research and create new approvals process to develop. |
Inclusive public spaces to welcome all residents
Public parks, sidewalks, plazas, and other public spaces could be designed to be equitable, inclusive, and accommodate all residents and uses. In Philadelphia, Spruce Street Harbor Park provides amenities, such as hammocks, for all visitors including people experiencing homelessness.
| Type of Response | Prevention |
|---|---|
| Type of Task | Funding, Policy Implementation
|
| Resource | Generally only staff time and some program funding would be required
|
| Complexity | Medium – generally some legislation and/or some change of and existing program, and two to three agencies involved
|
| Timing | Long Term (more than 5 years)
|
| Geographic Scale | Citywide |
| Partners | Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing (HSH), Planning, Recreation and Parks Department, Public Works (DPW), community partners |
| Key Priority | Yes - Potential City Programs and Policies |
| Benefit | Integration of residents of different race, ethnicity, and incomes; people experiencing homelessness could feel welcome in more of the City’s public spaces. |
| Challenge | Redesigning public spaces requires capital funding and can the multi-year efforts and there is effort required to empathize with different people’s experiences. |
Increase resident awareness of the root cause of homelessness
There is an opportunity to increase awareness in the City of the root cause of homelessness. Homelessness is often perceived as a problem in and of itself when it is a symptom of a larger housing affordability and community stabilization issue. Providing resources and information for all residents will help to support the lives of people experiencing homelessness, as well as those who are housed.
| Type of Response | Mitigation |
|---|---|
| Type of Task | Policy Implementation
|
| Resource | Generally only staff time and some program funding would be required
|
| Complexity | Medium – generally some legislation and/or some change of and existing program, and two to three agencies involved
|
| Timing | Long Term (more than 5 years)
|
| Geographic Scale | Citywide |
| Partners | Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing (HSH), community partners |
| Benefit | Increased empathy and potentially less conflict among residents regardless of housing situation. |
| Challenge | Education campaign requires additional resources and may be looked over as the City invests in other immediate homelessness prevention programs. |
