Resource Center

Over the weekend, Ned Resnikoff had an op-ed in the San Francisco Chronicle considering California’s homelessness crisis in light of its similarities to the climate crisis. One theme in this piece is the need for federal intervention. California has long been a leader among U.S. states on climate policy, and in recent years it has started to make significant progress in developing effective programs to prevent and end homelessness.

Beginning this week, policy manager Ned Resnikoff will be posting a weekly list of some housing and homelessness news that you might have missed.

Margot Kushel, MD, director of the UCSF Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative, was quoted in this article about how California moved thousands of people experiencing homelessness into private hotel rooms during the COVID-19 pandemic—in an effort named “Project Roomkey”—which eventually provided temporary shelter to more than 48,000 people in hotel rooms leased by the state. Dr. Kushel said, “What you don’t see are that many, many of those folks who are out there are getting out of their tents and going to jobs.” 

The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted economic systems, social networks, and individual behaviors, altering patterns in health care use. In this study, researchers compared homeless and unstably housed (HSH) women who did and did not use an emergency department during the first 10 months of the pandemic. The researchers found that the rate of emergency department use among HUH women during the pandemic was similar to prior research.

Public policy academics Pamela Herd and Don Moynihan have an interesting brief in Health Affairs on how administrative burdens can harm the health of low-income people. Herd and Moynihan quite literally wrote the book on administrative burdens, so their work on the subject is always worth a look.

Much of BHHI’s work is rooted in a simple premise: The solution to homelessness is housing. While lack of a permanent home is not the only challenge facing most unhoused people, it is the one challenge they all have in common. And whatever other challenges they may have—whether they include persistent unemployment, physical disability, mental illness, or none of the above—are significantly harder to manage for people who are simultaneously dealing with the stress of homelessness. Giving people homes creates the conditions necessary for them to heal and flourish.

Welcome to the introductory blog post of the Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative, which describes what to expect from future posts.

This brief, based on our analysis of Census Pulse Data and a survey administered by BHHI and partners at UC Berkeley and UC ANR Nutrition Policy Institute, includes recommendations for how public and nonprofit entities in California can improve emergency rental assistance uptake among low-income renters. Because many survey respondents said they were not aware of the emergency rental assistance program's existence, our core recommendation is that various entities engage in public outreach to renters who are likely to be eligible for assistance.

San Francisco is buying hotels to house people experiencing homelessness, but some neighborhoods are resisting supportive housing efforts. Margot Kushel, MD, director of the UCSF Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative, said, "The usual opposition forces who really don’t want to be part of the solution have had time to mobilize and that’s going to be a problem not just in San Francisco, but other cities."

UCSF BHHI director Margot Kushel, MD, director of the UCSF Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative, says solving homelessness shouldn’t be just one neighborhood or community’s responsibility. “Everyone wants homelessness solved but people are worried. They have concerns and to be honest, neighborhoods block the things they most need, which is if they had housing in their neighborhood they would have fewer people facing homelessness,” Dr. Kushel said.

Margot Kushel, MD, director of the UCSF Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative, is among the panelists discussing how the partnership between UCSF scientists, government officials, advocacy organizations, and media has changed the way older adults experiencing homelessness received support from the City of Oakland. The film highlights how structural inequities can be addressed through influencing and widely scaling local policies and programs.

This brief on the Home Safe program summarizes key findings from the UCSF Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative’s (BHHI) interim evaluation of the program. It includes a brief description of the program, an overview of the evaluation’s design, and an assessment of the Governor’s 2021-22 budget proposal to expand Home Safe eligibility.

The UCSF Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative collaborated with the California Homeless Coordinating and Financing Council and the California Health Care Foundation to create resources to help homelessness response systems with COVID-19 vaccination planning. The second in a series, these materials detail key lessons learned from the early rollout of COVID-19 vaccination events for sheltered or service-connected people experiencing homelessness.

The homeless population is aging and people experiencing homelessness are at a heightened risk of experiencing physical and sexual victimization. This study examined whether homelessness is independently associated with experiencing physical or sexual abuse. Researchers found that older homeless adults experience high rates of victimization.

The San Francisco Department of Public Health implemented the Coordinated Care Management System (CCMS) in 2007. The CCMS is used to develop High Users of Multiple Systems (HUMS) tp identify individuals with the highest use of emergency medical services. Researchers described the HUMS scoring system and the characteristics and service use of the highest scoring 100 individuals. Researchers found that nearly all of the individuals had a history of homelessness in SF, and over half were unsheltered at their last point of contact.

With cities implementing new camping bans and conducting new removals, advocates and homelessness experts are troubled by the new wave of enforcement around homelessness. In addition, temporary shelter still falls short of what is needed to move people off the street for good. “The goal should be to get everyone into permanent housing,” said Ned Resnikoff, policy manager at the University of California, San Francisco Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative. “If getting them sheltered doesn’t get you closer to that goal, then you actually haven’t solved anything.”

Several shelter-in-place hotels, where people with medical vulnerabilities have safely quarantined since the pandemic broke out, will close by the end of August, and the city’s largest congregate shelter has paused intakes for weeks due to positive COVID tests from residents. Margot Kushel, MD, director of the UCSF Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative, “Non-congregate shelter is a really important intervention. It has been throughout the pandemic and with the virulence of the delta variant is, arguably, more so now. Getting people into safety is important for all.”