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New data shows the number of homeless residents in both the South Bay and East Bay has shot up dramatically over the past two years, a disturbing revelation that prompted renewed calls for action from local officials.
In Alameda County, this year’s tally found 8,022 people sleeping outside, in cars or RVs, or in shelters — up 43 percent from 2017. In Santa Clara County, the homeless population is up 31 percent — with 9,706 people counted this year. Contra Costa County will release its latest data Monday, and San Mateo County will release its data next month.
The startling increases come as officials throughout the Bay Area struggle to keep their poorest residents housed in increasingly expensive markets, contend with sprawling tent encampments taking over city blocks and find space within their borders for the growing number of families whose only available home is a car or RV.
“It’s not numbers — these are people,” said Doug Biggs, executive director of the Alameda Point Collaborative and a leadership board member of EveryOne Home, the organization that spearheaded the count. “These are mothers with kids. They’re brothers, they’re sisters, they’re parents, they’re grandparents that are living in conditions that nobody in this country should be allowed to live in.”
Service providers in Alameda County help about 1,500 homeless people a year find housing — but that barely makes a dent, because 3,000 people lose their homes each year, EveryOne Home found. It would cost $330 million a year to provide housing to everyone who needs it in Alameda County — a jump from the $106 million the county spent addressing homelessness during the last fiscal year, according to EveryOne Home.
The numbers come from a nation-wide, HUD-mandated effort to gather data on the country’s homeless population. Every two years, volunteers in the Bay Area and beyond count by hand the number of homeless people they see on a given night, or several nights, in January.
San Jose has seen a 42 percent spike in homeless residents, from 4,350 in 2017 to 6,172 in 2019. Data for Oakland will be released in August.
“This report calls for us collectively to end the reign of the NIMBY in Silicon Valley,” San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo said. “We all have a shared responsibility to address this crisis — every city, every neighborhood — and that means we must house homeless neighbors here and not the proverbial somewhere else.”
Local leaders have been trying to address the problem, but the recent numbers prove their efforts haven’t been able to reverse its course.
Recently, San Jose opened its first permanent supportive housing development, bringing more than 100 people off the streets. And later this year, projects using funding from the 2016 affordable housing bond measure — Measure A — will house hundreds more residents. Nearly 7,000 people living in Santa Clara County have moved into permanent housing since 2015.
Oakland is temporarily housing some of its homeless population in converted garden sheds called Tuff Sheds. The city launched a $9 million homelessness prevention initiative dubbed Keep Oakland Housed, and in January the city said the program had kept nearly 500 families off the streets.
Still, the tent encampments continue to grow.
“It’s definitely not getting better,” Elder said.
In the South Bay, while three-quarters of homeless people were unsheltered in 2017, the 2019 count shows an unsheltered rate of 83 percent in San Jose and 82 percent in the county.
“It’s disappointing and unacceptable, but I don’t think it’s shocking,” said Ragan Henninger, deputy director of San Jose’s Housing Department. “We know what the answer is. It’s more housing.”
The vast majority of homeless people who move into permanent supportive housing stay housed, according to Destination:Home, an organization that has partnered with the city and county to house homeless people.
Alameda County Supervisor Wilma Chan is considering asking voters in that county to approve a half-cent sales tax increase in November 2020. The tax would raise about $150 million over a yet-to-be-determined number of years, she said. The money would help pay the operating costs of running shelters and other programs and would go toward rent subsidies for people at risk of eviction.
“Bottom line is, there’s not enough funding,” Chan said.
Though the 2019 tally seems shockingly high in Alameda County, Elder suspects the real story is even more appalling. It’s easy for volunteers to miss people, resulting in an undercount, she said.
Biggs acknowledged an undercount is likely every year but said his team supplements the count with additional data from interviews and statistical analysis that factors in undercounting.
Biggs blamed the homelessness crisis in part on the region’s soaring cost of housing, citing a growing number of first-time homeless residents.
Homes are selling in Alameda County for a median price of almost $802,000, and the median price for a rental unit is $3,100, according to Zillow. In Santa Clara County, homes are selling for a median price of more than $1 million, and the median rent price is $3,600.
Mental health problems and addiction issues also play a role, and the county needs to focus on preventative services such as job training, mental health and substance abuse support, and eviction help, Biggs said.
Still, it’s not all bad, he said.
“The other important thing to recognize is … 1,500 people were housed last year,” he said. “That’s a huge number.”
