Builds on Santa Clara County’s proven prevention model; backed by $77 million in new funding, including through TED’s The Audacious Project
SAN JOSE, CA (Feb. 24, 2026) – Destination: Home, alongside core partners, announced today that it is launching Right at Home, a national initiative to stop homelessness before it starts. By striving to keep more than 10,000 families stably housed, Right at Home will work to demonstrate that prevention is possible and is scalable nationwide.
Half of all U.S. renters cannot afford their housing costs, and economic pressures are pushing more people into crisis every day. Acting faster to prevent housing loss is critical to curb the historically high levels of homelessness experienced today.
The single most obvious solution to homelessness is stopping it before it starts, yet our country continues to respond only after people fall into crisis. We have proven that targeted homelessness prevention works locally and now it’s time to prove that this can work all across the country. We should never let people, in the worst moments of their lives, suffer even more.
Jennifer Loving, CEO of Destination: Home
Right at Home builds on a proven prevention model that provides rapid, flexible financial assistance, alongside case management, to support families on the brink of losing their homes. The model was spearheaded by Destination: Home and Sacred Heart Community Service in Santa Clara County, CA.
By intervening earlier, this approach has helped nearly 44,000 people locally avoid the profound trauma of homelessness and has reduced the need for far more costly public interventions after housing has been lost—such as shelters, emergency healthcare, and other crisis services.
The approach not only prevents homelessness, but has also demonstrated strong cost effectiveness: more than 90% of participating households remained stably housed two years later, and a randomized controlled trial conducted by the University of Notre Dame’s Wilson Sheehan Lab for Economic Opportunities (LEO) found that every $1 invested saved almost $2.50 ($2.47) in benefits to the community.
To date, Destination: Home has secured $77 million in new funding to support the Right at Home initiative. Funders include The Audacious Project—a collaborative funding initiative housed at TED that encourages the world’s greatest changemakers to dream bigger—Cisco, Sobrato Philanthropies, and the Valhalla Foundation.
The Audacious Project is incredibly proud to support Destination: Home as they tackle one of the most urgent challenges facing the United States today. Audacious is built to identify and elevate bold, proven solutions with the potential to transform systems at scale — and Destination: Home is doing exactly that for homelessness prevention. We hope this is a catalyst for additional resources, funding and opportunities as these visionaries make the case for effective national homelessness prevention policy.
Anna Verghese, Executive Director of The Audacious Project
Right at Home is supported by a coalition of cross-sector partners committed to homelessness prevention, including Cisco, Homebase, the Wilson Sheehan Lab for Economic Opportunities (LEO) at Notre Dame, Silicon Valley Community Foundation, and Sobrato Philanthropies.
Cisco is proud to support bold partnerships that help prevent homelessness here in Silicon Valley. At a time when families across America are struggling to stay housed, solutions that are evidence-based and scalable matter more than ever. The Right at Home initiative shows what’s possible when the private sector works side-by-side with communities, and I invite other leaders to join us in expanding its impact.
Chuck Robbins, Chair and CEO of Cisco
Over the next five years, Right at Home will set out to help more than 10,000 households at high risk of homelessness remain stably housed. The initiative is partnering with local leaders in 10 communities to develop sustainable homelessness prevention systems tailored to community needs. These communities span urban, suburban, rural, and Tribal geographies and reflect a wide range of economic conditions that directly impact housing stability. This approach will test the prevention model across different contexts and work to generate evidence that it is both rigorous and replicable.
Right at Home community partners to date include Alaska (Alaska Coalition on Housing and Homelessness); Asheville Region, NC (Asheville-Buncombe Continuum of Care); Atlanta, GA (Partners for HOME); Austin-Travis County, TX (Ending Community Homelessness Coalition); County of San Mateo, CA; Denver-Adams County, CO (Metro Denver Continuum of Care); Miami-Dade County, FL (Miami-Dade County Homeless Trust); Minnesota (Minnesota Tribal Collaborative Pathways to Housing).
Working with the pilot communities and LEO as the national evidence partner, Right at Home will test and rigorously evaluate the impact of rapid, flexible financial assistance, and inform the case for a national prevention policy.
“We already have strong evidence that targeted prevention can keep people housed. Right at Home is a chance to take those results to impact at a national scale. By working alongside communities, we can learn what it takes to deliver strong outcomes in different places—and share what works so leaders can strengthen and sustain prevention over time. Most importantly, we can help more people stay housed before a temporary crisis becomes homelessness.
David Phillips, Director of Research, LEO
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Media Contact: For more information or to schedule an interview, please contact Beth Weaver at media@rightathomeusa.org.
About Destination: Home. Destination: Home is a public–private partnership working to end homelessness in Silicon Valley and beyond. Through our collective-impact model, we convene and collaborate with community stakeholders to address the root causes of homelessness and drive systemic change. We take a data-driven, human-centered approach—advocating for effective policies, incubating new ideas and programs, and investing in strategies that connect more of our homeless neighbors to stable housing and prevent homelessness before it begins. Destination: Home leads the Right at Home initiative, with a goal of building strong evidence that prevention works—so we can end homelessness locally and nationally. Together, we can build a nation where homelessness is rare, brief, and non-recurring.
About Homebase. Homebase is a national nonprofit with 35 years of experience bringing people together around a shared vision for ending homelessness and transformative strategies to turn that vision into practical reality. Homebase is proud to provide technical assistance and planning support to Right at Home communities as they develop and implement innovative, effective systems to keep people housed.
About the University of Notre Dame’s Wilson Sheehan Lab for Economic Opportunities. The Wilson Sheehan Lab for Economic Opportunities (LEO) at the University of Notre Dame powers service with research. LEO partners with service providers nationwide to build rigorous evidence on what works to reduce poverty and improve lives. Grounded in the belief that research should serve people, LEO shares what it learns with others to turn evidence into impact.