DATE:
September 9, 2025
21
TO:
Board of Supervisors
SUBJECT
Title
ADVANCING TRANSPARENCY AND ACCOUNTABILITY IN OUR HOMELESSNESS RESPONSE (DISTRICTS: ALL)
Body
OVERVIEW
The County of San Diego has made substantial investments to address homelessness across the region. This includes funding for emergency shelters, bridge housing, affordable housing development, behavioral health services, substance use recovery programs, and wrap-around support. These efforts reflect a strong commitment by this Board to reduce homelessness and ensure vulnerable residents have a pathway toward stability and self-sufficiency.
The 2025 Point in Time Count shows an 11% reduction in homelessness in the unincorporated area. While this is a significant improvement, there are still around 200 people living on our streets. This is unacceptable, and it underscores the urgency of continuing to refine our strategies, close service gaps, and ensure no one is left behind.
To inform our policy moving forward, we need to know what is working, and what is not. To accomplish this, we need transparent, consistent, and actionable updates on progress in our efforts to house every homeless person in the unincorporated area. Without this data, our ability to evaluate the effectiveness of our strategies is hampered. The unincorporated area faces unique challenges, and it is our responsibility to ensure that we understand those challenges and adapt our strategies as needed. Utilizing the By-Name-List will be critical to this effort.
Today's action directs the Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) to explore the feasibility of providing a monthly memo to update the Board of Supervisors and the public on how many homeless individuals are in the unincorporated area, the barriers each individual faces, how many were connected to emergency shelter/the Regional Housing Assistance Program, and how many exited to permanent housing. The return to the Board should address barriers to acquiring data, ex...
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