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On July 25th, 2024, Governor Gavin Newsom issued an executive order directing state agencies to clear "dangerous" homeless encampments from state land. State agencies will assess encampments to identify any “imminent threat to life, health, safety or infrastructure.” The new executive order faces criticism from civil rights groups and advocates for people experiencing homelessness. Margot Kushel, MD, director of the UCSF Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative, said, "If we move people from one place to another place, that doesn’t meet our goal."

In the state of California, the three major utility companies, have nearly doubled electricity rates over the last decade. With growing increase in energy demands, the rising utility costs are pushing families already at the margins to the brink of homelessness. Many people are forced to making an impossible choice. Margot Kushel, MD, director of the UCSF Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative, said, "I think recognizing energy insecurity as a contributor to this crisis, this is the next frontier that we need to really worry about."

Following is a statement by Dr. Margot Kushel, MD, Director of the Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative (BHHI) at the University of California, San Francisco on the 2023 Annual Homeless Assessment Report, released today by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Conducted by the UCSF Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative, the California Statewide Study of People Experiencing Homelessness (CASPEH) is the largest representative study of homelessness in the United States since the mid-1990s. The study provides a comprehensive look at the causes and consequences of homelessness in California and recommends policy changes to shape programs in response.

The UC Center Sacramento hosted a "Special Winter Symposium: Dimensions of Chronic Homelessness and the Search for Solutions." In session 4, Margot Kushel, MD, director of UCSF’s Benioff Housing and Homelessness Initiative, joined State Senator John Laird and Dr. Toby Ewing to discuss how California is addressing the issue of people who are chronically unsheltered and what barriers remain.

Margot Kushel, MD, director of UCSF’s Benioff Housing and Homelessness Initiative, wrote an editorial in JAMA about a recent study on the negative health consequences of involuntary displacements on the lives of people experiencing homelessness. Dr. Kushel writes, "The question is not whether living in unsheltered settings is dangerous, but rather what is the role of forced displacements in addressing the harm caused by them."