Why Our Local Health & Hospital System is Key to Solving Homelessness

Ending homelessness takes a united, community-wide effort, and over the past decade, our community has built a powerful collective impact model driving real progress. While much of our attention is understandably focused on housing providers providing stability for those most in need, one essential but often overlooked partner is our local health and hospital system.

In this piece, we’ll highlight the important role our public hospital system plays in our homelessness response. And also how Measure A gives us the chance to protect that critical system from devastating federal healthcare cuts—and ensure it remains a lifeline for our unhoused and at-risk neighbors.

Santa Clara Valley Healthcare: Our County’s Public Hospital System

Santa Clara Valley Healthcare, our County-operated health and hospital system, is one of the largest and most impactful components of our local safety net, providing access to healthcare for ALL residents (regardless of insurance status or ability to pay) through its 4 hospitals, 15 health centers and a number of other specialty programs and clinics throughout the community. 

While Santa Clara Valley Healthcare is often recognized for its role serving low-income and uninsured residents, the system also provides critical life-saving services to insured residents every day. In fact, our 4 publicly-run hospitals handle nearly 1/2 of all emergency department visits (750 visits every day) and 2/3 of all trauma cases in the county. 

All together, close to half-a-million residents receive care from Santa Clara Valley Healthcare every year.

Santa Clara Valley Healthcare’s Key Role in Addressing Homelessness

With its wide array of healthcare services, Santa Clara Valley Healthcare plays an integral part in our local homelessness response.

Santa Clara Valley Healthcare serves as the primary healthcare provider for our unhoused residents. Unhoused individuals face enormous health risks at a far higher rate than the general population. Yet, Santa Clara Valley Healthcare is often the only option for unhoused individuals to receive medical care. 

Last year alone, Santa Clara Valley Healthcare treated 10,000 unhoused patients, providing both a lifeline for desperately-needed healthcare and another key access point to be connected to housing support and other social services.

Their services go far beyond those provided at our four County-run hospitals. Through the Valley Homeless Healthcare Program, the County health system serves unhoused individuals through several community-based clinics, four mobile health centers, a medical respite program, and the internationally-recognized Backpack Homeless Healthcare program– bringing care directly to people living on the streets.  These services help treat urgent needs early, often preventing costly emergency room visits for our unhoused community. 

Santa Clara Valley Healthcare also provides many of the key services that make our housing programs successful. Research has shown that housing paired with services is the key to long term stability. The County’s Hope Clinic, for example, offers primary care, mental health, and social services to people entering or living in permanent supportive housing. The system also delivers essential behavioral health care, including mental health and substance use treatment, that are key areas of support for those recovering from the trauma of homelessness.  

Finally, ensuring access to affordable healthcare is essential to preventing homelessness. In our high-cost region, tens-of-thousands of families are literally one financial emergency away from being pushed onto the streets. In fact, after income loss, medical emergencies are one of the most common reasons that families seek assistance from our Homelessness Prevention System. With its commitment to serve all residents regardless of their insurance status or ability to pay, Santa Clara Valley Healthcare helps ensure that fewer families have to choose between accessing lifesaving medical care or keeping a roof over their heads.

How All of These Important Services Are Threatened by HR 1 (aka “the Big Beautiful Bill”)

Tragically, all of the life-saving services that both housed and unhoused residents rely on could be drastically slashed. The County hospital system’s largest single funding source is Medi-Cal (our state’s Medicaid system), which is facing deep cuts as a result of the federal reconciliation bill adopted in July.

Here in Santa Clara County, that cut translates into more than $1 billion annually in lost federal funding to our local hospital system – leaving a gaping hole in the Santa Clara Valley Healthcare system’s finances that is roughly the amount of the combined budgets for O’Connor, Regional and St. Louise hospitals! The magnitude of this lost funding would make it simply impossible to shield our local hospital system from deep cuts to core healthcare services: from ERs and trauma care to mental health support and cancer treatment.

These cuts will hit our lowest-income and most vulnerable residents the hardest, especially our unhoused neighbors who rely on the local hospital system for essential medical care. With cuts of this scale,  more families will be forced to choose between caring for a sick child and keeping a roof over their heads. More unhoused residents will grow critically ill on the streets, unable to get care for infections, injuries, or chronic conditions that can quickly become deadly without treatment. Manageable conditions like asthma and diabetes will worsen as people lose access to the medications and preventative care they need to avoid life-threatening complications. 

And make no mistake: all of us, even those with private insurance, will feel the consequences. Cuts of this magnitude mean longer wait times, fewer doctors, and possible closures. Read more about the local impact of the Federal Medicaid Cuts