News

This news article reports on varying methods quantifying homelessness in San Francisco. These metrics — the PIT count, city data, and others — are often mere snapshots of the whole picture, or require people to reach out for services, said Margot Kushel, MD, director of the UCSF Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative. That means a lot of people are left unseen. People drift in and out of homelessness; a person who was homeless at some point in the year may not be any more, she said.

This New York Times article reports on increasing deaths among people experiencing homelessness and highlights a recent JAMA Network Open study from UCSF Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative researchers. BHHI faculty members Maria Raven, MD, and Margot Kushel, MD, are quoted.

This podcast episode highlights homelessness’ impact on health, the structural and racialized nature of homelessness, and practical interventions to address housing inequities. Margot Kushel, MD, director of the UCSF Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative, and Bobby Watts discuss what brought them into their fields, how their work reaches the most marginalized, and what can be done at the community and structural level to address homelessness.

Ned Resnikoff, policy manager for the UCSF Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative, wrote about the relationship between the asset economy and homelessness.

Ned Resnikoff, policy manager at the UCSF Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative, said the best long-term solution to homelessness is to build more low-income housing. In the interim, people who are currently homeless need to be moved into housing. Mr. Resnikoff said resources need to be strategically funneled into preventing homelessness, and permanent rental subsidies could be one solution to helping prevent homelessness.

More than twice as many people experiencing homelessness in San Francisco died during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic compared with previous years, and the leading cause of death was drug overdose. No deaths were attributed to the virus itself. "Death from the COVID-19 pandemic may have been avoided, but deaths from other factors known to impact this population disproportionately—drug use and violence—have increased," said Maria Raven, MD, MPH, Chief of Emergency Medicine at UCSF, who co-leads the program on adults with complex needs at the UCSF Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative. "Mitigating death among people experiencing homelessness will require a multi-faceted approach and a willingness to invest significant resources."

Maria Raven, MD, spoke about a new UCSF Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative study that found 331 homeless San Franciscans died during the first 12 months of the coronavirus pandemic—more than double any previous year. Acute drug toxicity was the leading cause of death. Traumatic injuries, including suicide and homicide, were the second most common, followed by chronic medical conditions. Interventions like shelter-in-place hotels may have helped mitigate deaths due to COVID-19 and related health conditions, but lockdowns and increased isolation may have compounded other risks.

In this special streaming series from NBC Bay Area, Margot Kushel, MD, director of the UCSF Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative, discussed findings from her study in Santa Clara of housing with supportive services. "It was resoundingly successful. These were the most challenging folks, and they spent 90% of their nights housed for 7 years after that. If we could do that for that population, the numbers would be so much better for everybody else," she said. "We have not been able to bring it to scale because of cost. California is the second worst state in the nation for housing affordability."

Graham Pruss, PhD, UCSF Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative postdoctoral scholar, was quoted in this editorial discussing the rise in vehicle residency and possible ways to address it. Pruss suggests three basic options: lots for people living in cars where the goal is to move to house as quickly as possible; a supportive parking model for people in RVs who want to house, but it may take time; and a mobile home park where people stay indefinitely.

What rarely gets talked about in the news are the myths about why someone becomes, or continues to be, homeless. Speaking with Voice of San Diego, Margot Kushel, MD, director of the UCSF Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative, dispelled assumptions about the correlation between mental illness and homelessness. She explained, "What really determines whether an area — a city, a state, a country — has more homelessness or less homelessness is not how much mental health or substance use problems there are. It actually has much more to do with whether housing there is affordable. So even within our own country, we see that areas with the highest substance use and mental health problems don’t always have the highest homelessness. And in fact, they usually don’t. The areas that have the highest homelessness are the areas with the biggest disconnect between what housing costs and what people make."