News

A new study from the nonpartisan California Policy Lab and the UCSF Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative shows that a small group of people are repeatedly cycling in and out of both the county’s health and criminal legal systems each year and represent a disproportionately high amount of utilization of these systems. “Our research highlights the need for coordinated, evidence-based interventions to address these individuals’ complex needs, promote stable housing, and prevent poor health outcomes including untimely death,” said Maria Raven, MD, chief of emergency medicine at UCSF Medical Center and co-lead of the Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative program on adults with complex needs. The authors advocate for a more coordinated approach, such as connecting people released from the emergency room or jail with housing and continued care.

Hospital emergency departments (ED) are on the frontlines of serving people experiencing homelessness, and this report investigated what ED data can reveal about homelessness in California. Hospitals operated by counties and the University of California reported higher shares of ED visits by people experiencing homelessness. Linking discharge data with homeless services programs can offer insights into how people engage with programs and help provide better resources to evaluate the programs and investments aimed at improving the lives of Californians experiencing homelessness.

In a long-term study of older people experiencing homelessness in Oakland, 26% of the participants died within a few years of being enrolled, UCSF BHHI researchers found. The study, funded by the National Institute on Aging, recruited people who were 50 and older and homeless, and followed them for a median of 4.5 years. Researchers examined how factors like regaining housing, using drugs, and having various chronic conditions, such as diabetes, affected participants' risk of dying. They found that people who first became homeless at age 50 or later were about 60% more likely to die than those who had become homeless earlier in life, and those who remained homeless were about 80% more likely to die than those who were able to return to housing.

A UCSF BHHI study that followed older homeless adults in Oakland for nearly a decade found that becoming homeless after the age of 50 ratchets up a person’s likelihood of dying early, underscoring the unmistakable role that housing has in extending life. Researchers determined that people in the study who remained unhoused—compared to those who regained their housing—were 80% more likely to die during the follow-up time period from mid-2013 to the end of 2021.

This news article describes ongoing efforts to vaccinate people experiencing homelessness in San Francisco against COVID. Margot Kushel, MD, is quoted regarding the earliest vaccination efforts, which BHHI helped strategize and implement on the ground with local organizations. She said it wasn’t so much fear about the vaccines that made it hard for low-income and unhoused people to get shots. “So much of it was really about access,” said Dr. Kushel. “Setting up big tents to come get vaccinated was good for a lot of people, but for others we really needed to go to where they were.”

In the first year of the pandemic, San Francisco and other communities in California offered private hotel rooms, three meals a day and on-site medical services to homeless people who were at risk of getting severe COVID-19. The aim was to stop the spread of the virus among a highly vulnerable group, but the policy had another important effect, according to new research by UC San Francisco, UC Berkeley, and the San Francisco Department of Public Health. It dramatically lowered the use of acute medical care by the hotel occupants who had used this type of care the most in the past.

This radio news story reports how mayoral candidates in LA propose addressing homelessness in Los Angeles. Margot Kushel, MD, director of the UCSF Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative, discusses how solving homelessness requires a big systemic fix. "The underlying drivers of homelessness are the lack of deeply affordable housing, income inequality, and structural racism. It’s going to be hard to solve this problem without effort from the federal government."

This radio program takes an in-depth look at how more people experiencing homelessness in Las Vegas are now living in vehicles. UCSF Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative Postdoctoral Scholar Graham Pruss, PhD, describes how BHHI research in Oakland showed that people living in vehicles need a variety of temporary and long-term parking spaces, which could mean safe parking programs and long-term supportive parking programs. Pruss noted it can take months or even years for a transition into permanent housing.

In Los Angeles, 85 people experiencing homelessness were murdered last year—the highest number ever recorded, according to LA Police Department data. Margot Kushel, MD, director of the UCSF Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative, noted that the trend of unhoused homicide victims may seem contrary to what many think of when discussing homelessness. Countering the common misperception that unhoused people are dangerous, she explained how people experiencing homelessness are vulnerable to violent crime. Dr. Kushel said, "What I hear when I spend time with many people experiencing homelessness is how terrified they are and how terrifying the experience is, and this is layered on top of a public who is afraid of them."

The lack of affordable housing, systemic racism, and weak safety nets are the leading causes of Silicon Valley’s homeless crisis. UCSF Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative Director, Margot Kushel, MD, was a featured speaker for this event that San José Spotlight and nonprofit Destination: Home hosted as part of a series on the root causes of homelessness and possible solutions. The panel also featured Dontae Lartigue, founder, and CEO of Raising The Bar and board chair of the Santa Clara County lived experience advisory board; Jeff Olivet, executive director of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness; and Tomiquia Moss, founder, and CEO of All Home. Destination: Home CEO Jennifer Loving moderated the conversation.