California passed the Community Assistance, Recovery, and Empowerment (CARE) Act in 2022 to provide behavioral health and housing services to individuals with psychotic spectrum and schizophrenia disorders who are deemed unable to care for themselves. This policy brief from the Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative at UCSF and the California Policy Lab uses anonymized data to estimate how many San Franciscans in a database of individuals who have contact with the urgent and emergent care system may be eligible for referral to CARE Court and describe their service needs.

The UCSF Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative collaborated with Kaiser Permanente and the National Health Care for the Homeless Council to provide guidance on COVID-19 screening in congregate shelters.  The Antigen Testing in Congregate Shelters: Process Outline and Implementation Playbook provides key strategic planning and operational considerations for screening using inexpensive rapid-testing solutions in lieu of PCR-only testing. To better protect people experiencing homelessness from the impacts of COVID-19, local health jurisdictions, health care service providers, and congregate shelter sites can use this guidance to coordinate operational needs and processes while implementing a screening testing program.

This toolkit offers guidance for researchers, advocacy groups, non-profit organizations, government agencies and others interested in, or currently engaging in, meaningful community-eng...

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.

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 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 third in a series, these materials describe important considerations in planning strategies for vaccinating unsheltered people, as all persons experiencing homelessness are now eligible for vaccination in California.

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.

The State of California Homeless Coordinating and Financing Council, the California Health Care Foundation, and the Benioff Housing and Homelessness Initiative at UCSF have joined together to create a series of resources to help homelessness response system leaders and providers prepare and implement a strategy for vaccinating homelessness service workers and people experiencing homelessness in every California county and community. These planning materials are the frst resources of the series.