2 Years, 28% Less Homelessness

“Homelessness is solvable.” While I once could only hope that was truth, today I know it’s a fact.

I have spent almost nine years working on housing and homelessness in the Bay Area. Across the nine Bay Area counties, 30,000 people are currently homeless. Almost 2/3 are unsheltered.

I have spent the last six years working in Marin County, a wealthy, progressive and environmentally-minded community just north of the Golden Gate Bridge. Marin has the 7th highest per capita rate of homelessness in the entire country.

Despite the seeming enormity of the challenge, from 2017 to 2019, we reduced long-term, chronic homelessness in Marin County by 28%.

To be clear, homelessness is a symptom. It is the result of a breakdown in a lot of other systems — the housing market, the labor market, recovery services, mental health services, systemic racism. In this way, I like to say that homelessness is like a bathtub. People “flow” to the streets from these upstream causes. We see the “stock” of people who have lost their housing but have yet to regain it.

On top of this inflow, there is a whole additional layer of systemic challenges that prevent “outflow” to permanent housing — local jurisdictions’ unwillingness to invest in solutions, misguided investments from philanthropy and other funders, an erosion of social cohesion, etc.

Attempting to synthesize these various diagnoses, a few years ago I wrote an op-ed that opened with “Homelessness is the most complex social challenge we face. The causes are varied, the prescriptions are polarizing, and our perceptions of the issues and those experiencing them are shaped by profoundly personal worldviews.”

While I still believe that’s true, I’ve come to realize that with the right strategy and the right team, any complex system can be changed. In Marin, we didn’t always know what we were doing, but we maintained a steadfast commitment to the goal of ending chronic homelessness. From that goal, we have built a powerful new system that is helping us achieve that vision.

The strategy we’ve implemented in Marin County could easily be scaled to other communities. Over the coming months and years, I am embarking on a mission to do just that. We built an amazing coalition in Marin, and we can do the same thing across the country. I hope you’ll join the team!