Recent cuts to university research funding are having negative impacts on our campus, as well as colleagues at other universities. Cuts to programs that support the critical work of community organizations and the threatened decreases in benefits to low-income, senior, and disabled people are likely to result in increases in homelessness. There is no more important time for research labs like ours to continue our commitment to using research to identify the programs, policies, and actions that most effectively prevent and end homelessness. We continue to partner with students, providers, policymakers, and people with lived experience to learn together and center our shared humanity in how we address the complex social problem of homelessness. We especially thank our donors whose support has allowed us to continue our work despite times of uncertainty with federal funding. 

 

This quarter, we have published public-facing reports and academic papers, spent time updating our website and publicly available data, and supported our students in completing senior research projects. Please read updates on our graduating student research assistants, emerging and continuing research projects, and local and national events in which our researchers are participating.
 
Sincerely,
Jennifer Nations, PhD - Managing Director
Mirle Rabinowitz Bussell, PhD - Faculty Director
Leslie R. Lewis, PhD, MPH - Director of Education and Community Engagement

Homelessness Hub Research Featured in Local Podcast

 

Our managing director, Dr. Jennifer Nations, was recently featured on Interfaith Community Services's local podcast. Interfaith's Homeless in San Diego, is a podcast hosted by Greg Angela, CEO of Interfaith Community Services, that features a local professional each week to bring attention to the lived experiences of San Diegans experiencing homelessness. Dr. Nations shared findings and research implications from two recent Homelessness Hub reports, Homelessness Trends and Overnight Emergency Services in San Diego County and Passing Through and Staying Put: Emergency Shelter Trajectories in San Diego County, 2018-2023, in the most recent episode. Access the podcast episode here: https://www.homelessinsandiego.org/listen/.

 

Graduating Student Researchers

 

This year many of our talented student researchers will be graduating including Patricia Estaris, Magda Gomez, Jessica Jatiram, Lily Keefauver, Haven Lo, Christine Martinez, Helen Tran, and Michael Yang. Patricia, Lily, and Michael all participated in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning's Urban Expo by presenting their senior research projects on issues related to homelessness. Patricia presented, Power on the Pavement: Exploring the Role of Business Improvement Districts in Anti-Homeless Policy and its Spatial Impacts in Downtown San Diego which shed light on opportunities for public-private partnerships to develop solutions-oriented approaches to address downtown homelessness. Lily exhibited, Working with the Unhoused: Understanding the Realities among Frontline Service Providers, which examined how front line homelessness service providers balance job responsibilities and motivations in light of structural barriers. Michael presented, The Right to the River: Examining Responses to Unsheltered Homelessness in Three California River Parks, which analyzed coordination between river advocacy nonprofits and service providers in San Diego, Los Angeles, and Sacramento. Haven completed his senior project last year and acted as a teaching assistant to his peers, while Magda, Helen, and Christine all worked to complete their College Corps program, which provides community-centered service opportunities for UCSD students. Finally, Jessica completed her honors practicum, in which her group presented their findings from 774 student surveys to the Directors of Career Services and Financial Aid to improve student services. Their presence and hard work will be missed at Homelessness Hub next year and we are immensely proud of them!

 

Students Receive Department and University Awards

 

The Department of Urban Studies and Planning (USP) at UC San Diego gives out awards every year in multiple categories to honor students. This year, Homelessness Hub students were well-represented across all categories. Graduating senior, Lily Keefauver won the Academic Distinction Award. Another graduating senior, Patricia Estaris, won two awards: the Ambitious Designer Award and Best USP Senior Research Award. Samantha Lee won the Emerging Scholar Award. Katelyn Chen was awarded one of two Emerging Leader Awards. Finally, graduating senior, Michael Yang, received 2nd place in the Best USP Poster Awards for his poster presentation at the Urban Expo and was chosen by UC San Diego as one of twelve university-wide Student Employees of the Year.

 

Single-Room Occupancy (SRO) Project

 

The Homelessness Hub has been collecting data on single-room occupancy hotels (SROs) since 2021. SROs are often called "housing of last resort" and allow tenants to either exit or avoid homelessness. SROs typically have lower than market rate rents because rooms are very small and bathrooms and kitchens are shared. Nonetheless, SROs provide an essential stock of naturally occurring affordable housing for seniors, veterans, previously institutionalized individuals, and people living on extremely low, fixed incomes. San Diego has one of the largest remaining SRO stocks in the country but this stock is diminishing quickly - 75 SROs were lost between 2002 and 2023 by Homelessness Hub estimates. In light of these losses, the City of San Diego and San Diego Housing Commission have prioritized preservation and new construction of SROs as a solution to shrinking naturally occurring affordable housing stocks.

 

Our SRO team, which includes Dr. Jennifer Nations, Dr. Stacey Livingstone, Dr. Josh Newton, Helen Tran, and Magda Gomez, recently finished two reports to highlight issues to be addressed in preservation and new construction. The first report details how social isolation in SROs affects the mental health of tenants. The second report outlines accessibility issues in SROs caused by building design, maintenance, and policies. You can find these reports here: Social Isolation Report and Building Accessibility Report.

 

Limited Equity Housing Cooperative Symposium

 

One of our postdoctoral scholars, Dr. Josh Newton, recently participated in a symposium on limited equity housing cooperatives as part of the Housing Alliance at the UC San Diego Design Lab with Grant Ruroede, a Housing Policy Specialist at the City of San Diego, and Kim Coontz, Executive Director of the California Center for Cooperative Development. Limited equity housing cooperatives are an alternative solution in housing that not only create permanently affordable housing, but also local democracy within housing through resident voting and board membership. Limited equity housing cooperatives are an essential part of a healthy housing ecosystem as they use blanket (group) mortgages to produce homeownership opportunities for low and very low income residents that are often ineligible for conventional mortgages. They also have vastly lower monthly payments than market rate housing, and thus present opportunities for community wealth building when savings are reinvested in the community. Josh is currently leading an emerging Homelessness Hub research agenda on limited equity housing cooperatives and just recently presented on supportive policies for them at the California Center for Cooperative Development's annual conference in Davis, California.

 

California HIV/AIDS Research Program

 

Homelessness Hub launched a new project in March on the connections between HIV and homelessness. Funded by the California HIV Research Program, this study will be the first official collaboration between the Homelessness Hub and colleagues at the HIV Neurobehavioral Research Program (HNRP) at UC San Diego Health. This research is assessing the feasibility of using sanctioned encampments as sites to increase access to, and use of, low-barrier HIV prevention and care methods, including  phone apps, storage lockers, vending machines, and mobile clinics.

 

As part of a larger collaboration with HNRP, including a project funded by UC Research Initiative’s Presidential Research Catalyst Awards, the Homelessness Hub is excited to hire and train two new Homeless-Experienced Action Research Training (HEART) Fellows.

 

Homelessness Hub's Updated Data Bank

 

Homelessness Hub originated as a GIS (Geographic Information Systems) data portal. With GIS Manager Julie Wartell, our team saw that there was no centralized repository for homelessness-related data and maps in San Diego County. In addition to the internal data we have collected and analyzed for research purposes, we provide a public-facing, user-friendly means to map and download many data layers to visualize and analyze these important issues. We have recently updated the portal, and now have 39 layers for anyone to map, download, and use in your own analysis. This includes data for the City of San Diego (e.g. 311 encampment reports, transit priority areas, etc.) and San Diego County (e.g. senior nutrition sites, housing elements, etc.). We also link to numerous layers provided through SANDAG/SanGIS that users may want to analyze in relation to homelessness and housing-specific data. Our website also hosts dashboards, StoryMaps, and static maps from some of our research! Find our publicly available layers and more here: https://hhubsandiego-ucsdonline.hub.arcgis.com/pages/data-bank.

 

Conference Update

 

We have several Homelessness Hub researchers that presented at state and (inter)national conferences this quarter. Our postdoctoral scholar, Zofia Bednarowska-Michaiel, presented her work at the 2025 Annual Association of Geographers Annual Meeting in Detroit, MI in March. Our student researcher, Lily Keefauver, participated in the Housing California 2025 Conference in Sacramento, CA in March. Finally, our staff researcher, Julie Wartell, and postdoctoral scholar, Josh Newton, both participated in the International Conference on Urban Affairs in Vancouver, BC, Canada in April. We are so proud of our scholars for advancing the research of the center outside of the San Diego region!

 

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