Resource Center

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.

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.

The number of individuals incarcerated in the United States has increased since the 1970s. Frequent emergency department (ED) use and incarceration can both be driven by underlying structural factors and social needs. Researchers conducted a retrospective, cross-sectional analysis to assess whether an increased frequency of ED use was associated with incarceration. They found that ED use is independently associated with incarceration.

In the United States there has been a simultaneous rise of mass incarceration and homelessness. Both of these phenomena are driven by the same structural factors, housing being the most important. Researchers present evidence-based approaches to improve housing strategies for reentry populations, prevent homelessness among those in community supervision, and rehouse members of the reentry community experiencing homelessness.

Recently the demographic characteristics of people experiencing individual homelessness have changed; more individuals over the age of 50 are experiencing homelessness. BHHI researchers examined the motivations for and challenges of older adults experiencing homelessness staying with or moving in with family or friends. Researchers found barriers to stay such as feelings of shame and concerns about burdening the hosts. Findings suggest that family members and friends may play an important role in supporting older adults experiencing homelessness.

In this cross-sectional study, researchers studied the association between residential relocation and health outcomes in people who inject drugs (PWID). PWID are at an increased risk of low socioeconomic status and homelessness. Researchers found that any residential movement in the past 30 days was associated with increased odds of bad health outcomes.

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.

Health impacts of encampment sweeps, racial inequities in harm reduction, and more homelessness and housing news from the past week that you may have missed.

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.

The asset economy, social housing, and more homelessness and housing news from the past week that you may have missed.

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

Vehicular homelessness in Oakland, pandemic-era mortality rates in San Francisco, and more homelessness and housing news from the past week that you may have missed.

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.

A new BHHI report sheds light an oft-misunderstood subpopulation of unhoused people.

BHHI conducted in-depth interviews with 48 people living in their vehicles in Oakland. This report sheds light on the needs and challenges of vehicle residents and provides recommendations on how the city can better serve that population.

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."