Happy Summer! During the winter and spring quarters, we released a report about shelter services in the county, expanded our national network, increased our local footprint, and made essential progress in research. Please read our updates about community-based teaching and research initiatives. As we continue the second half of 2024, we'd like to extend our thanks to the many people who have supported our work thus far -- we couldn't do any of this without you.
 
Sincerely,
Jennifer Nations, PhD - Managing Director
Mirle Rabinowitz Bussell, PhD - Faculty Director
Leslie R. Lewis, PhD, MPH - Director of Education and Community Engagement

San Diego County Homelessness Emergency Services Report

Team members Jennifer Nations, Julie Wartell, and Daniel Sjoholm recently completed the first report in a series from our regional study of homelessness services availability and access in San Diego County. The following are key findings from the full report available at this link:

• The number of people utilizing homelessness services in San Diego County rose 72 percent between 2016 and 2024.
• The San Diego region does not have sufficient emergency shelter beds to accommodate people experiencing homelessness. Despite this, the best solution is to increase permanent supportive housing beds rather than temporary shelters.
• Homeless shelters and other overnight accommodations are geographically clustered in the City of San Diego but other jurisdictions have increased shelter beds in response to rising rates of homelessness in their regions.
  

Fifth Cohort of Urban Challenges Scholars

Twenty-five students participated in this year's Urban Challenges: Homelessness in San Diego cohort, an innovative practicum course series that provides students an opportunity to engage in hands-on  homelessness research in San Diego. The course is taught by two of Homelessness Hub’s faculty members, Dr. Leslie Lewis and Dr. Mirle Rabinowitz Bussell.  In February of this year, students visited homelessness service and housing provider sites followed by a lunch and knowledge exchange with some of Homelessness Hub's research collaborators from the HEAL (Homeless-Experienced Advocacy and Leadership) Network. Students also contributed to Homelessness Hub’s evaluation of Humble Design San Diego through preliminary analysis of survey data and conducted trauma-informed interviews with individuals experiencing homelessness at a transitional shelter and two safe parking programs run by Jewish Family Services of San Diego. In both cases, students presented their work to service provider leadership. It was a rich experience for the students and a very rewarding opportunity to engage in a “real world” project that will support our ongoing evaluation of the shelter and services ecosystem across our region.

Homelessness Hub Researchers Attended the Urban Affairs Association Conference in New York City 

Five of Homelessness Hub’s research team members had the opportunity to attend the annual Urban Affairs Association (UAA) conference in New York City in late April. Drs. Leslie Lewis, Jennifer Nations,  Stacey Livingstone, Josh Newton, and Mirle Rabinowitz Bussell shared findings from recent projects. The UAA conference attracted over 1,400 scholars from around the world.

Does Interior Design Affect Resilience? An Evaluation of Humble Design San Diego
 

Over the past few months, Homelessness Hub teammates Jessica Jatiram, Leslie Lewis, Stacey Livingstone, and Mirle Rabinowitz-Bussell have worked on an evaluation of Humble Design San Diego, an organization that provides free furniture and interior design to people who recently ended their homelessness. Early survey findings show that while 27% of people return to homelessness in San Diego within two years of moving into housing, only around 2% of Humble clients do so in the same time frame. Even more impressive, approximately 80% of Humble clients pay rent without any program assistance despite San Diego's extremely high cost of living. Interview data provides even more context. Individuals report a greater sense of security and normalcy: factors that promote physical, mental, and social health. New beds help clients sleep better, cookware provides the means to cook nutritious meals at home, living rooms  promote relaxing activities such as meditation or reading, and dining room tables facilitate family dinners. The result is greater resiliency when facing life's challenges and perseverance in seeking better economic opportunities. The full findings from this study will be presented to Humble Design collaborators at a Scholars Strategy Network event on August 20th, and also at the World Design Capital this fall.     

The HEART Fellowship: Research Justice and Democracy in Action

This past November, Homelessness Hub recruited seven people with lived experience of homelessness to participate in the inaugural Homeless-Experienced Action Research and Training (HEART) Fellowship. Fellows receive compensation to participate in research, writing, and engagement workshops and work on case studies for justice involved people, domestic violence survivors, seniors, and BIPOC individuals experiencing homelessness. Kuni Stearns, a HEART Fellow, describes the program’s mission and impact below:

"The HEART program is an effective, educational, and efficacious collaboration among academics and action-oriented advocates who have first-hand experience with a subject matter, in this case experiencing homelessness...I appreciate that our contributions are valued and that we receive commensurate compensation for the knowledge we impart. We are also importantly involved from inception to implementation on the case studies Homelessness Hub is currently working on."

The inclusive Research Justice and Democracy Model that guides the HEART Fellowship should be implemented wherever there is a deficit in incorporating the perspectives and evaluations of unconventional experts, or people with lived experience. Successful Research Justice and Democracy projects can lead to funding for future projects, especially when quantitative and qualitative academics collaborate.

Investigating San Diego's Single-Room Occupancy Hotels

Homelessness Hub team members, Helen Tran, Jennifer Nations, Josh Newton, Magda Gomez, and Stacey Livingstone, are working on an investigation of Single-Room Occupancy (SRO) options in San Diego. SROs are “housing of last resort,” as they provide an inexpensive option for the most low-income, vulnerable people in our city. The team mapped San Diego SROs and collected interviews with landlords, property managers, and residents of downtown SROs to document perspectives on SRO affordability, habitability, and access to resources. Our project team is working on public-facing reports and academic articles that span topics such as accessibility in SROs, social isolation among SRO residents, landlord/property manager relationships with residents, and stigmatization of SRO buildings and tenants. We are also working, in collaboration with Dr. Peggy Peattie of Voice of San Diego, SDSU, and City College, on a website to visualize SRO decline, as well as host resident photos that capture what it means for them to live in a SRO.

New Collaboration Addressing Student Housing Insecurity and Racial Justice

Homelessness Hub recently collaborated with UC San Diego Associated Students (AS) Campus-Wide Senator, Christina Marie Green and the AS Office for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion, to launch The Poverty Project: Uprooting Class & Racial Discrimination in Student Housing. The activism project brings a racial equity lens to the student housing crisis through a $5,000 research scholarship program, a backpack drive for unhoused UCSD undergraduate students, and a housing resource campaign and virtual database. Full details about the campaign can be found here. The scholarship facilitates development of a student project that fosters housing justice, particularly for undergraduate students of color. The winner of this year’s research scholarship is Samantha Chan, a Public Health major with minors in both Biology and Public Service. She will be mentored by Dr. Leslie R. Lewis, Director of Education & Community Engagement at Homelessness Hub, and commit to taking the Urban Challenges: Homelessness in San Diego course series to prepare for her research and advocacy work. Congratulations Samantha!

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