Unsheltered Homelessness : All Related Resources

Our Encampment Prioritization Tool is designed to help communities navigate the complex landscape of homelessness. By balancing the urgent need to address encampments with the chronic shortage of housing and shelter resources, along with health and safety considerations, this tool guides stakeholders in making informed decisions. It ensures that actions prioritize housing and shelter placements over displacement, aligning with broader systemic reforms to effectively manage and resolve encampments.

Encampment resolution is a strategic approach focused on connecting unsheltered individuals to stable housing rather than displacing them through sweeps. This method employs evidence-based practices to connect people with housing solutions and prevent re-encampment, involving a wide range of stakeholders to address both the needs of the encampment residents and the community’s broader concerns.

The University of California, San Francisco Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative (BHHI) today released a topic brief that sheds new light on the 78% of all Californians experiencing homelessness who live in unsheltered settings (i.e. outdoors, in a vehicle, in a place not meant for human habitation). It provides policy recommendations for reducing unsheltered homelessness through a combination of prevention, shelter, and permanent housing. 

Since the Supreme Court's landmark ruling in City of Grants Pass v. Johnson on June 28th loosed clearance rules, 12 California cities or counties have passed camping bans, while another nine are considering them or have already given initial approval. Palm Springs stopped short of exercising all authority granted to cities, with the new ordinance complying with a previous court ruling. Margot Kushel, MD, director of the UCSF Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative, said, "We need housing. We need subsidies. We need not just affordable housing, but we need deeply affordable housing."