News

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."

In this UC San Diego Department of Medicine Grand Rounds, Margot Kushel, MD, one of the world’s leading experts on homelessness, discusses why the homeless population is aging, the health consequences of aging in the homeless population, and possible interventions and solutions. Dr. Kushel is a professor of medicine and directs both the UCSF Center for Vulnerable Populations and the UCSF Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative.

"You cannot have a healthy society with this many people living on the economic and social margins," said UCSF Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative director Margot Kushel, MD. "Homelessness is lethal. We’re not going to be able to solve this without solving homelessness." An analysis from 2016 to 2020 shows homeless deaths have increased in cities across the United States, and numerous negative health outcomes are associated with homelessness.

This podcast episode tackles some of the most common myths about homelessness. Margot Kushel, MD, director of the UCSF Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative, is among the guests who discuss why it’s harder to get housed than people think, explain how most people who are homeless are not suffering from mental illness or substance abuse, and highlight how anyone can experience homelessness. The hosts also interview two people with lived homelessness experience.

San Francisco was one of the first major cities to adopt a housing-first policy: give someone a permanent place to live, provide access to robust care and resources, and positive outcomes will follow. Margot Kushel, MD, director of the UCSF Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative, said, “Solving the homelessness crisis will take resources and a commitment to house everyone—and then the ability to match services to the need.” While there will always be a need for emergency short-term shelter options, Dr. Kushel said, “a focus on shelter in lieu of housing is the worst of all options” because it “costs society a lot and doesn’t solve homelessness.”

Margot Kushel, MD, director of the UCSF Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative, spoke about Oakland’s new shallow subsidy program, which will help 200 low-income households pay rent for 18 months by sending money directly to their landlords. The UCSF Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative will evaluate the impact the program has on families to determine whether people who received subsidies were more likely to remain housed than those who did not.

This article reports on how state spending on homelessness in California will be allocated to creating more living spaces and how Caltrans plans to address encampments. “Spending state money on harassing people who are struggling under the impacts of local, state, and federal policy failures is counterproductive,” said Margot Kushel, MD, director of the UCSF Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative, of clearing encampments.

A new shallow subsidy program in Oakland will cover a portion of rent for extremely low-income households. While giving 200 families monthly subsidies is a “drop in the bucket” compared to the need, it could encourage more programs like it, said Margot Kushel, MD, director of the UCSF Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative, who will analyze whether the program prevented people from losing their housing. A night at a shelter, with no support services attached, could cost about $100 a night, or $3,000 a month, Dr. Kushel said, versus $700 a month spent in this pilot to keep them housed.