From homeless to housed: April Snapshot
Every month, we track the number of people who exited homelessness in San Francisco so we can determine if we are on pace to meet our housing goals for the year. Staying on top of this information helps us ask the important questions – of ourselves and others – to make sure we are doing everything possible to get people off the streets and into homes.
Our latest data show that 100 people exited homelessness in San Francisco in February, for a total of 184 people so far in 2021. This is great news for those 184 individuals, but it is cause for concern if we are going to meet our 2021 housing goals this year given the shortfall in housing placements we experienced in 2020. The past month saw notable changes in homelessness response at the City and in the face of these leadership transitions, included in our In the News section below, we must remain committed to our goal of moving our unhoused neighbors into homes.
An important piece of meeting our goal this year involves the work of the Our City Our Home (OCOH) Committee, born from the passage of the 2018 Prop C ballot measure. OCOH funds effectively double the amount of money San Francisco has to spend on homelessness services and prevention, giving us an opportunity to transform how we think about and respond to homelessness as a city.
Read more about Funding Solutions to Homelessness:
What You Need to Know About Prop C
With that in mind, the OCOH Committee hosted multiple focus groups and listening sessions this month to guide the development of a comprehensive plan that is informed by both quantitative data and community input. The combination is a powerful way to ensure we can prevent and end homelessness for as many people as possible with these funds.
Each session highlighted the voices and experiences from a broad range of stakeholders who represent the subpopulations that make up the kaleidoscope of the homelessness experience. Hearing from individuals and families experiencing homelessness, justice-involved individuals, transition age youth, veterans, domestic violence survivors, members of the LGBTQIA+ community, pregnant women, and homelessness prevention advocates gives the Committee valuable information to make recommendations for the Mayor and Board of Supervisors to adopt. The OCOH campaign ran as “the people’s initiative” and the community listening sessions are an integral part of delivering on that promise.
We are continuing to track the number of people who moved from Shelter-in-Place (SIP) hotels into permanent homes. In November 2020, the City of San Francisco set an ambitious goal to move more than 2,000 people into homes in a four-phase process that ends in October 2021.
The City tracks this data weekly, compared to monthly for full system exit data, and as of March 22, only 34% of individuals from SIP hotels have moved into permanent homes from November 2020 – March 2021. We cannot afford to continue this pace and risk sending the majority of people in the SIP hotels back to the streets. We owe it to our unhoused neighbors to respond to this moment with a level of urgency that matches the ambitious scope of the goal.
We need you! All In is a campaign built on the people of San Francisco, and here’s how you can show up for our unhoused neighbors:
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Stay up to date with the latest news about homelessness and housing in SF:
- ‘Flex Pool’ Program Matches Homeless San Franciscans to Vacant Apartments
- Dead on the Streets of San Francisco
- Funding Solutions to Homelessness: What You Need to Know About Prop C
- Mayor Breed is working on a huge expansion of S.F.’s homeless housing. How much will it help?
- S.F. finds a way to build homeless housing cheaper and faster. A powerful opponent is fighting it
- Head of S.F.’s homeless department resigns as city grapples with unhoused amid pandemic