Portland had the guts to find safe sites for its homeless. Does Sacramento?

Several California cities have adopted a new approach to clearing homeless encampments that prioritizes housing over displacement, called Inside Safe. The model involves spending 6-8 weeks getting to know each encampment resident individually, matching them with appropriate housing, moving people gradually and minimizing police involvement. Los Angeles's Inside Safe program has moved 5,200 people indoors over three years, with approximately 25% securing permanent housing.

The Community Health Center of Southeast Kansas and its subsidiary Building Health act as safety nets for uninsured people experiencing homelessness by expanding the definition of healthcare to also include housing, serving about 85,000 people a year. By providing wraparound care and services from help finding housing to legal assistance and education, the groups’ combined efforts helped shrink the rate of uninsured, unhoused people from 16% in 2020 to about 12% now.

Efforts from the local Housing, Health and Human Services Center helped make Bergen the first — and one of the few — U.S. cities that have reached functional zero for chronic homelessness. Through providing counseling services and helping those in need access care and other resources like employment, the Center has helped several people secure housing, nearly eliminating long-term homelessness for veterans and those struggling with conditions like addiction and other mental illnesses.

Inside Safe addresses the significant homelessness crisis in the city by traveling to encampments and offering people hotel rooms to stay in where they are connected with permanent housing and other necessary resources, like mental health care. Hotel rooms provide people with a safe space to heal and rest while working with a case worker to find housing. The initiative has so far moved 1,373 people into hotel rooms and 77 of them have moved into permanent housing.

Haven for Hope is a large, 22-acre, 1,600-person shelter that serves 85% of the city’s homeless population. It’s an all-inclusive space that provides a place to stay, as well as access to services like medical and dental care, counseling services, mental health care, childcare, job and housing assistance.

Efforts throughout Texas to reduce homelessness are serving as inspiration for states like California, that have similar homelessness issues. From committing funding to homeless reduction programs to establishing more advanced shelters like The Navigation Center, the state recorded a 28% drop in homelessness last year and has helped several individuals transition into permanent housing.

The Nomad Alliance bus is a warming center on wheels that provides people experiencing homelessness a safe place to stay. The bus accepts anyone who needs help, so long as they help keep the bus clean, and can take in about 20 people at a time.

Avivo Village provides shelter for those experiencing homelessness and assists them in securing their own permanent housing. Avivo Village is specifically for people experiencing unsheltered homelessness and offers a safer option than staying in encampments. As of December, Avivo Village helped 119 secure housing and every time a person moves out, the Village moves in someone else from an encampment.

Reinstitute is a global non-profit, focusing on lowering homelessness across the world. The organization works with communities, both rural or urban, and constructs a “100-day challenge” to gather various groups and resources together to make a consequential change in homelessness in 100 days. The program has seen great success across the U.S., most recently housing 1,852 people following a campaign in California.

The city of Tucson and Pima County are using a network of cooling centers, repurposed shipping containers and street outreach teams to protect unhoused residents and people living in substandard housing from deadly summer heat. The coordinated response, which includes trauma-informed staff training, heat-relief kit distribution, and an annual planning summit, is helping reduce heat-related deaths in the region.