OUT HERE
Policy
On June 28, 2024, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Grants Pass v. Johnson that it is legal to arrest and fine people experiencing homelessness if they are camping on public property, regardless of availability of shelter and affordable housing.
Supreme Court of the United States, June 28, 2024
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-175_19m2.pdf
https://calmatters.org/housing/2024/06/california-homeless-camps-grants-pass-ruling/
Governor Newsom orders California officials to remove homeless encampments.
New York Times, July 25, 2024
Newsom Orders California Officials to Remove Homeless Encampments - The New York Times
Numbers of Numbers of People Experiencing Homelessness
California has the highest poverty rate in the country.
https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/ca
Over 180,000 people are unhoused every night in California.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Point in Time Count, 2022
Between 2019 and 2022, homelessness increased by at least 22,500, in the state of California.
https://calmatters.org/housing/2022/10/california-homeless-crisis-latinos/
Over 9,000 individuals are experiencing homelessness in Sacramento County.
https://sacramentostepsforward.org/continuum-of-care-point-in-time-pit-count/2022-pit-count/
Nearly one third (30%) of people experiencing homelessness in the country are families with children.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Point in Time Count, 2022
Homelessness increased 67% in Sacramento County from 2019-2022.
https://sacramentostepsforward.org/continuum-of-care-point-in-time-pit-count/2022-pit-count/
One in five California community college students, one in 10 California State University students and one in 20 University of California students are experiencing homelessness.
https://oshi-la.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/cts-state-of-crisis-report.pdf
1 in 4 children in Sacramento County live in poverty.
Sacramento Regional Coalition to End Homelessness
Approximately 187,000 students K-12th grade experience homelessness in California.
California Department of Education, 2023
https://calmatters.org/education/k-12-education/2023/04/k-12-enrollment/
The mortality rate is 4 to 9 times higher for people that are unhoused compared to the general public.
Sacramento Regional Coalition to End Homelessness
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) estimates that 40,056 veterans are unhoused on any given night.
National Coalition for Homeless Veterans
People experiencing homelessness in California are Californians. Nine out of ten unsheltered Californians report losing their last housing in California and 75% of them live unhoused in the same county as their last housing.
The California Statewide Study of People Experiencing Homelessness, Benioff Housing and Homelessness Initiative
University of California, San Francisco, June 2023
https://homelessness.ucsf.edu/sites/default/files/2023-06/CASPEH_Executive_Summary_62023.pdf
One-fifth of all unsheltered youth are victims of human trafficking.
Housing
There are 71,131 shelter beds available on any given night in California.
U.S Dept. of Housing and Urban Development
Point in Time Count, January 2023
California needs more than one million affordable and available units to house its low-income citizens.
National Low Income Housing Coalition, 2024
Over 50,000 families are on the waitlist to get into low-income housing in Sacramento County.
Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency, 2024
More than half of renters in California are cost-burdened, meaning they spend more than 30% of their income on rent, and most cost burdened tenants are people of color.
https://calmatters.org/explainers/housing-costs-high-california
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/10E654mH-BJlP3mxx2I6RRWOqTYPRbubwJjRfCAsav2o/edit#gid=0
“Sacramento is roughly 2000 shelter beds short every night, leaving many people sleeping on the streets.”
Kimberley Church, Sacramento Safe Space, Director, and Sacramento City Homeless Advocate Students
16.7% of CSUS students report that they are food insecure.
Sacramento Regional Coalition to End Homelessness
People who are food insecure are disproportionately affected and susceptible to chronic disease.
Sacramento Regional Coalition to End Homelessness
Mental Illness
57% of people experiencing homelessness report some mental health issue.
Sacramento Regional Coalition to End Homelessness, 2023
The prevalence of severe mental illness among an individual experiencing chronic homelessness ranges from 33% to more than 50%.
“Every unhoused person I work with has some degree of anxiety and depression. Many suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.”
Amanda Buccina, Wellspace Health, street nurse
There is one psychiatric bed per 5,922 people in the state of California.
https://www.calhospital.org/sites/main/files/file-attachments/cha_whitepaper_psychbeds.pdf
“Sacramento County serves 25,000-30,000 people a year in outpatient mental health services. 10-15% of those people identify as unhoused.“
Dawn Williams, Behavioral Health Services, Sacramento County
“There is little mental health care follow up after an unhoused person is treated in the hospital emergency room. There are not enough mental health services to refer to when someone is discharged from the ER.”
Samuel Murray, MD, UC Davis Medical Center psychiatrist and former emergency room staff resident
Domestic Violence
Domestic violence is a primary cause of homelessness for women and families.
https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/dvhomelessness032106.pdf
“Domestic violence is the leading cause of homelessness for families”
Lisa Culp, Executive Director, Women’s Empowerment, Sacramento
Among mothers with children experiencing homelessness, more than 80% had previously experienced domestic violence. Aratani, Y. (2009). Homeless Children and Youth, Causes and Consequences visit disclaimer page. New York, NY: National Center for Children in Poverty.
92% of a racially diverse sample of unhoused mothers reported experiencing severe physical and/or sexual violence at some point in their lives.
https://vawnet.org/sites/default/files/materials/files/2016-09/AR_SAHomelessness.pdf Browne, A., & Bassuk, S. S. (1997). Intimate violence in the lives of homeless and poor housed women: prevalence and patterns in an ethnically diverse sample. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 67, 261-278.
The National Network to End Domestic Violence reports that more than 90 percent of women who are unsheltered have experienced severe physical or sexual abuse at some point in their lives.
Uchegbu, Amaku. “Homeless Women Find Sexual Violence Part of Life on the Street.” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 17 Aug. 2015.
Drug and Alcohol Dependence
12.6% of the unhoused become unhoused due to drug and alcohol dependence, and over 90% of the chronically unhoused (4 plus episodes of homelessness in the past 3 years) report drug and alcohol abuse or dependence.
Sacramento Regional Coalition to End Homelessness
“Unhoused people have to wait weeks to months to get accepted to government subsidized residential drug and alcohol treatment. Cost of private residential substance dependence treatment ranges from $5,000 - $30,000 or more for 30 day inpatient residential treatment.”
Amanda Buccina, Wellspace Health, street nurse
“In my estimation, 85% of the chronically unhoused have issues with substance dependence. 95% of them have substance dependency in their personal history.”
Mark Sawyer, Homeless Services and Program Coordinator, West Sacramento Police Department
LGBTQ
7% of youth in the United States are LGBTQ, while 40% of youth experiencing homelessness are LGBTQ.
LGBTQ individuals are 4 times more likely to commit suicide than their straight peers.
https://truecolorsfund.org/our-issue/
https://transrespect.org/en/map/trans-murder-monitoring/
“It consumes every second of every day to stay alive when you are unhoused. Eating, sleeping, and safety are your only concerns. Being transgender and unsheltered is like a double whammy. A lot of services didn’t cater to me identifying as male and being in women’s facilities. I was treated like an “other.” I wasn’t safe there. I couldn’t trust anyone. Suicide or assault was only inches away at all times.”
Liam, Transgender, homeless for 12 years.
Foster Care Youth
20% to 30% of unhoused individuals have interacted with the child welfare system and/or graduated from the Foster Care system. More than one-half (56%) of former foster youth have a mental health disorder. http://www.saccounty.net/Homelessness/Documents/2017_SacPIT_Final.pdf
Each year an estimated 20,000 18 years olds age out of the U.S. foster care system. Compared to other youth in the United States, kids who age out of foster care are more likely to not have completed high school or received a GED, they often suffer from mental health problems, many are unemployed and live in poverty, and nearly 40% experience homelessness.
Cost
California Governor Newsom’s budget proposal for the 2023-24 fiscal year contains $3.4 billion in homelessness funding.
Sacramento City has 7 full time police officers that work exclusively with the unhoused.
Sergeant Greg Galliano, Impact Team. Sacramento Police Department
https://www.cityofsacramento.org/Police/Resources/Impact-Team
Hospital Emergency Room Service
"Nearly one-third of all visits to the emergency room are made by people struggling with chronic homelessness.
Emergency departments are not equipped to meet the psychosocial needs of homeless community members and do not have the capacity to assist them with housing, substance abuse treatment, and mental health care. People struggling with homelessness are often frequent users of emergency departments. On average, they visit the emergency room five times per year. The highest users of emergency departments visit weekly. Each visit costs $3,700; that's $18,500 spent per year for the average person and $44,400 spent per year for the highest users of emergency departments."
https://www.greendoors.org/facts/cost.php
The top 250 "persistently unhoused" people cost the city and county of Sacramento over $11 million a year in behavioral health care, jail, ambulance rides and police services.
https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/homeless/article209832564.html#storylink=cpy
Prison: Numbers and Cost
Approximately 29% of all male inmates and 37 % of female inmates receive some form of mental health services in the state of California.
Bill Sessa, Communications, California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation
http://www.cdcr.ca.gov/DHCS/docs/Mental%20Health%20Program%20Guide.pdf
Over 30 percent of California prisoners currently receive treatment for a “serious mental disorder,” an increase of 150 percent since 2000.
Stanford Justice Advocacy Project
https://www-cdn.law.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Stanford-Report-FINAL.pdf
It costs an average of about $71,000 per year to incarcerate an inmate in prison in California.
https://lao.ca.gov/policyareas/cj/6_cj_inmatecost
The County Jail has an average of 2400 inmates a day.
It costs $126.06 per day to house an inmate at the Sacramento County Main Jail and $114.67 per bed at the Rio Cosumnes Correctional Center.
Sacramento County Grand Jury Report, 2017-2018 Final Report
Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department
Incarceration and homelessness are mutual risk factors for each other. 25-50% of the unhoused population has a history of incarceration.
In Focus, Incarceration and Homelessness: A Revolving Door of Risk. A quarterly Research Review of the National HCH Council; 2013; Vol 2: Issue 2
https://www.nhchc.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/infocus_incarceration_nov2013.pdf
SSI Disability
“Many chronically homeless people get monthly disability payments for reasons of medical and/or psychiatric conditions that have lasted for 12 months or longer or anticipated to death. The highest SSI payment for one individual with no dependents in CA is $982.04 a month.”
Eric Phillips, Social Security Administration, Sacramento main office
The federal poverty line for one individual with no dependents in CA is $1,005.00 a month. https://www.thebalance.com/federal-poverty-level-definition-guidelines-chart-3305843