Dear Friends,

Recently, there has been a lot of news about a proposed Navigation Center along the Embarcadero. The Center, which will provide up to 200 beds for people experiencing homelessness, has raised many questions about how emergency shelter works in San Francisco. This Spotlight answers some of those questions with an overview of our City’s shelter ecosystem.

Today, the City offers a wide range of emergency options to support our neighbors experiencing homelessness. Most shelters are only open at night—some shelters exclusively serve families with children, and some are only open during the winter months. To make shelters more accessible, in 2015, San Francisco pioneered the Navigation Center—a first-of-its-kind shelter that was developed with advice and input from people experiencing homelessness. The resulting model provides intensive services and has a low barrier to entry, allowing guests to come in with their partners, pets, and personal belongings. This has helped more people connect with shelter and services. In the time since San Francisco opened its first Navigation Center, many cities have replicated the model in their own shelter systems.

While our Chronic Homelessness Initiative remains focused on housing as a permanent solution to homelessness, we believe that shelters and Navigation Centers play a crucial role in our homelessness response system. Read on to learn more about San Francisco’s emergency shelter system.

All my best,

Daniel

Snapshot: Emergency Shelter for People Experiencing Homelessness

The 2017 Point-in-Time Count showed that approximately 4,300 people in San Francisco are unsheltered and thousands more experience unsheltered homelessness every year. We know that living in these conditions takes an extreme toll on the physical and emotional well-being of any person, forcing people to increasingly use the City’s emergency and urgent care systems. And yet, for years, the shelter waitlist in San Francisco has been over 1,000 people per night.

In light of the high demand for shelter, Mayor London Breed has pledged to create 1,000 new shelter beds in her first two years in office, including her proposal for the SAFE (Shelter Access for Everyone) Navigation Center. To serve more people and be more efficient with tax-payer resources, the proposed SAFE Navigation Centers will offer shorter stays and tailored support services that scale up or down to meet the needs of current residents. Like the original Navigation Centers, SAFE Centers also minimize restrictions that dissuade people from choosing to enter shelter.

Here’s a quick breakdown of the key distinctions between San Francisco’s most widely used shelter options:

	Traditional Shelters	Navigation Centers	SAFE Centers
Cost to Operate	$50/bed/night	$90/bed/night	$70/bed/night
Capacity Citywide	1,400 beds	500 beds	In Development
Standard Stay Duration	Up to 90 days	Up to 90 days, optional extension if housing exit is in progress but requires time to finalize	Up to 60 days, optional extension if housing exit is in progress but requires time to finalize
Rules for Entry	No pets, limited belongings, must enter as individuals, (not as a couple), families permitted at designated shelters	Pets and belongings permitted, can enter with partners	Pets and belongings permitted, can enter with partners
Services	Space to sleep indoors, bathrooms	Space to sleep indoors, personal storage, bathrooms, housing placement support, “problem solving” to accelerate re-housing	Space to sleep indoors, personal storage, bathrooms, housing placement support, "problem solving" to accelerate re-housing

While these shelters can offer a respite from the conditions on the street, as a recent Bay Area Council report concludes, "a true solution to homelessness would require a permanent home for each homeless individual or family."

Who's Making It Happen

Scott Walton

Manager, Shelters and Navigation Centers

“Emergency shelters and Navigation Centers are a critical resource within the full response system to homelessness. By providing for some of the most basic needs of people experiencing homelessness, the City can then engage these individuals in assessment, problem solving, and effective referrals to available services.”

Scott Walton has been serving people experiencing homelessness in San Francisco since 2003, and today oversees a team that coordinates services and non-profit providers across the shelter system. He helped to create and structure Project Homeless Connect, and to develop and implement permanent supportive housing programs such as Care Not Cash and Local Operating Subsidy Programs. Scott also helped establish the earliest Navigation Centers in 2015.

What We're Reading

Why housing is now a health issue for Kaiser Permanente - The average life expectancy of people without housing falls by 27 years, which is part of why Kaiser is investing $200M to secure affordable housing to prevent homelessness.

Voters pick homeless wellness center over open space - Alameda voters show the Bay Area what it means to support compassionate solutions to the homelessness crisis in our own backyards.

Chronic Homelessness Initiative Overview

There are approximately 2,100 people experiencing chronic homelessness on any given night in San Francisco. Tipping Point’s $100 million pledge marks the single largest private investment to address homelessness in City history.

Tipping Point takes a three-pronged approach to our impact goal. See here for more details. If you are receiving this email as a forward, subscribe here to receive this update monthly.

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