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Oregon is one of several states betting on housing and outreach programs using Medicaid funds. Officials hope that by keeping people from experiencing medical crises that lead to repeated emergency room visits, Oregon will save enough money to pay for increased housing costs. California is also working to implement a program similar to Oregon's, spending more than $100 million a year on housing from its Medicaid budget. Margot Kushel, MD, director of the UCSF Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative said, "I know that if I could get my patients who are experiencing homelessness housing, we could make everything else work better".

West Virginia leads the nation in overdose deaths per capita, presenting a paradox to people who believe that drug use is to blame for the increase in people experiencing homelessness in cities. People who lose housing are more likely to increase their drug and alcohol use. Furthermore, experiencing both homelessness and drug addiction lengthens the time it takes to solve each problem. Margot Kushel, MD, director of UCSF’s Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative, said, "People conflate these crises. They are related but they are far from one and the same."

Nearly one-third of all Americans experiencing homelessness live in California. Starting in the fall of 2021, Aaron Shrank and Sam Comen conducted interviews and photographed unhoused people living in Los Angeles and Northern California as a companion piece to the University of California San Francisco Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative’s California Statewide Study of People Experiencing Homelessness to shed light on those affected. You can read a lightly condensed version of their stories. More of Comen and Shrank’s work is available at the website Unhoused CA.

Self-storage prices are rising. With an unregulated industry, owners can raise rates to whatever the market will bear. People who experience homelessness often use storage units to safeguard important papers and other possessions. When folks are unable to pay for the storage unit, their belongings can get locked in the unit or sold off. Margot Kushel, MD, director of the UCSF Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative, said, “People wind up paying an enormous proportion of their income to sustain these units, and then wind up losing them anyway. That feels particularly tragic because it’s like the worst of all worlds.”

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends new covid-19 booster vaccines for all. A boost in protection is important to protect people against severe COVID and death. However, structural factors have prevented booster uptake among those who could benefit the most from the vaccine. Booster rates among people who experience homelessness is largely unknown. Tiana Moore, PhD, the Policy Director at the UCSF Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative is concerned that people experience homelessness face high barriers to vaccination. Dr. Moore said, "Many of our participants talked about concerns about leaving their belongings when unsheltered since they don’t have a door to lock."

The number of people experiencing homelessness who are older than 50 is increasing. The second half of the baby boomers were aging and came of age during back-to-back economic downturns, making them financially less secure. Margot Kushel, MD, director of the UCSF Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative, said, "These are people who worked their whole lives. They had typical lives, often working physically demanding jobs, and never made enough to put money away."

A landmark study by UCSF Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative (BHHI) paints a different picture on people experiencing homelessness in California. The report released in June 2023, examines the demographics of people experiencing homelessness in California, how people enter and experience homelessness, factors that block or enable a person’s return to housing, and policy recommendations.

The Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative at the University of California San Francisco, released a groundbreaking report on the characteristics and causes of homelessness in California. The study used a mixed methods approach, collecting data from more than 3,000 surveys and 365 in-depth interviews. In addition to reinforcing the existing—and alarming—trends around both an aging population and disproportionate representation of communities of color among those experiencing homelessness, there were several findings from the report that stand out.

California is home to 30% of the nation's homeless population, and 50% of the nation's unsheltered population. The UCSF Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative released the largest representative study on homelessness in decades. The study's findings dispel common myths and take a systematic approach to understanding the causes of homelessness and potential solutions. Inside the Issues host Alex Cohen speaks with Margot Kushel, MD, director of UCSF’s Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative, about the landmark study and the root causes of homelessness. When talking about older people experiencing homelessness, Dr. Kushel said, "The story of homelessness in California is really older adults, usually older adults of color, living their last years on our streets."

The California Statewide Study on People Experiencing Homelessness is the largest representative study on homelessness since the 1990s. The research highlighted crucial aspects of homelessness and debunked several myths. Margot Kushel, MD, director of the UCSF Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative and principal investigator of the landmark study emphasized the urgent need for a national effort to combat homelessness, building upon the insights gained from the California study.