Homelessness remains an urgent crisis in our community because solutions are not yet scaled to adequately address the systemic root causes driving homelessness for decades. At Destination: Home, we know a future where homelessness is rare, brief and nonrecurring is possible and we remain committed to the strategic, evidence-based strategies that will make this shared vision a reality.
In 2025, we plan to invest more than $23 million in private and philanthropic funding, focusing on three key areas that continue to tackle the root causes of homelessness and support long-term solutions:
Providing Direct Financial Assistance To Homeless And At Risk Households
More households are severely rent-burdened than ever, spending more than half their income on rent and often just one expense away from becoming homeless. To turn the tide on our region’s homelessness crisis, we must prevent more people from being pushed into homelessness in the first place, and help ensure those who are currently unhoused can secure stable housing. To prevent and end homelessness, Destination: Home will continue investing in strategies that put financial assistance directly in the hands of residents who need it most:
We’ll expand on the growing movement of guaranteed income programs throughout Santa Clara County to serve new vulnerable populations experiencing and most at risk of homelessness – including young parent-led households and seniors who cannot access traditional support.
To serve more people facing eviction and/or other challenges putting them at risk of becoming unhoused, we’ll continue investing in the Santa Clara County Homelessness Prevention System and replicate the program’s cost-effective model in new communities.
Housing stability and health go hand in hand. To help individuals facing homelessness and in need of serious medical treatment, we’ll launch a pilot program with one of our Andre Ellison Equity Fund partners, Latinas Contra Cancer, to provide targeted financial aid and coordinated support with the healthcare system.
Building A More Equitable System
The strategies our community invests in to address homelessness are most effective when they are informed and shaped by those of us who have experienced homelessness and therefore know best how to solve it. In 2025, we’ll continue to support initiatives that advocate for and raise the voices of people with lived experience:
Building on the momentum of this year’s National Lived Experience Leadership Conference, we’ll expand our Leadership Cohort program to equip people with lived experience with the mentorship and resources needed to lead solutions to homelessness.
We’ll continue building MyConnectSV – a first-in-the-nation, client-facing Homeless Management Information System (HMIS) portal – to increase transparency and empower more unhoused individuals with direct access to their housing assistance information.
Punitive approaches to homelessness are inhumane and ineffective. Building on the anti-criminalization work that started this year, we’ll continue working with experts and local jurisdictions to forge a path toward strategies that are effective and humane – advancing a coordinated community response to criminalization and expanding direct legal services to assist more people.
Creating and Preserving More Deeply Affordable Housing
To continue addressing the single greatest systemic cause of homelessness in our community – a lack of affordable housing for our lowest-income households – we’ll continue making strategic early investments in developments with extremely low income and supportive housing units, and:
Investigate new streams of both public and private revenue to support the preservation and production of the thousands of units of deeply affordable housing that need more local funding to move forward
Provide capacity-building grants to local jurisdictions and mission-aligned organizations to better provide resident-centered services and housing that are grounded in lived experience and high quality outcomes for tenants
Implement new shallow subsidy pilots and equity-based housing models that either decrease rent burden or build ownership opportunities for extremely low income households
Solving homelessness is not possible without a broad coalition of public and private partners working together in pursuit of a community where every member has a safe, stable and affordable home. By looking back at our community’s shared success, we see what’s possible for the future and look forward to our continued collaboration with partners in the new year. Together, we’ll continue making headway toward ending and preventing homelessness in Santa Clara County.
Support Families Moving into New Homes!
More than 2,000 families in our community are no longer homeless after moving into permanent homes this year, and thousands more will achieve this milestone in the new year. To create a warm welcome and ensure they successfully settle into their new homes with dignity and all the essentials, families receive move-in kits with basic household items – including bedding, cleaning supplies, toiletries, and kitchen starter sets. Join us, and help make a house a home for families in Silicon Valley!
