Solving homelessness is top of mind for all of us, but our community gets sidetracked building consensus on solutions. Let’s remember that we all hold power in responding to the crisis of homelessness. And with a focus on root causes, it’s possible for us to make the experience rare, brief and nonrecurring.
Too much attention is placed on the individual circumstances that overlap with a person’s experience of homelessness, when really, it’s high housing costs and a lack of affordable options that are pushing people onto the streets and keeping them there for far too long.
Here’s a brief video to help explain:
We now have proof that the only correlation of a community’s high rates of homelessness is with high housing costs. Not mental illness, substance abuse, poverty rates or even nice weather.
So let’s spread facts and summon the will to expand housing-based solutions that are showing incredible promise in Santa Clara County.
Check out our Understanding Homelessness resource for additional information about the causes, solutions and facts about homelessness – including our new Myth vs Fact page. To get more involved and be notified when your voice is needed, consider joining Housing Ready Communities.
Join us 11/30 to learn more
We’ll be diving into this topic more at an upcoming lunchtime workshop, intended to equip you with the facts about what’s pushing people into homelessness and the cost-effective ways our community must respond.
Local Prevention Efforts Serving as a National Model
The Santa Clara County Homelessness Prevention System has reached nearly 15,000 households, with the vast majority remaining housed. It’s helping our community curb the growth of experiences of homelessness locally, and now being highlighted as a model worth replicating across the country. Check out Results for America’s new case study and a related opinion piece highlighting our effective local prevention strategy.
