Mayors of nine West Coast cities from California, Hawaii, Oregon and Washington gathered for the 2^nd annual West Coast Mayors Summit hosted by Mayor Edwin M. Lee to discuss the issues of homelessness and resiliency.

Portland Mayor Charlie Hales, Seattle Mayor Ed Murray, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell, San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo, Sacramento Mayor-elect Darrell Steinberg, West Sacramento Mayor Christopher Cabaldon, Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf and San Francisco Mayor Lee participated in the discussions.

“Now more than ever it’s critical that leaders are united in tackling the issues we face in our urban cores,” said Mayor Lee. “By bringing together mayors from up and down the West Coast we can explore new innovative strategies, leverage our resources and make a powerful call for a renewed focus on homelessness and resiliency.”

The two day summit began with a focus on homelessness. The recently released 2016 Annual Homeless Assessment Report (AHAR) to Congress found that 549,928 people in the country experienced homelessness on a single night in 2016, a decline of 14 percent since 2010. Despite this national decrease, many West Coast cities have seen an increase in homelessness. The recent increases are related to the high cost of housing, low vacancy rates, and the opioid crisis.

“As Seattle and our fellow West Coast cities develop solutions to the homelessness crisis, we must focus on the individual needs of those living on our streets,” said Mayor Murray. “This means not simply addressing homelessness, but also its causes, from a lack of affordable housing to funding for mental health and substance abuse treatment. Homelessness is often the result of many other public policy and environmental failures and we must seek to address those if we are going to serve those in need.”

“Homelessness is not hopelessness in Sacramento or any other city in this country,” said Mayor-elect Steinberg. “It is first and foremost a humanitarian issue, weighing on our collective conscious and challenging our nation to be innovative, collaborative, and compassionate. As mayors from West Coast cities we clearly have a common agenda around homelessness. Especially in these times we must band together to tackle the issues and learn from each other.”

“All of the mayors participating in this summit have similar challenges with homelessness and have found a number of unique solutions,” said Mayor Kirk Caldwell. “As we deal with challenges at the federal level, these west coast cities and Honolulu are united to help our residents find permanent housing.”

The mayors, joined by United States Interagency Council on Homelessness Executive Director Matthew Doherty, discussed the challenges of preventing and ending homelessness in their communities and shared best-practices. Each mayor presented on recent successes in their cities’ fight to end homelessness. Presentations ranged from strategies to raise local resources, innovative ways to address street homelessness and encampments, and leveraging initiatives we know work to end veteran, youth and family homelessness.

“Portland, like many cities, is grappling with a crisis — more people are sleeping outside than we have housing available,” said Mayor Charlie Hales. “The crisis has also brought the opportunity for innovative solutions through new partnerships. I’m proud that Portland is the first West Coast city to receive official designation in meeting the White House’s Mayors Challenge to End Veterans Homelessness. This achievement would not have been possible without the dedication of federal resources in our community. In order to sustain the incredible progress we’ve made, we need continued support from the federal government to ensure everyone has a safe and affordable place to call home.”

“Every major U.S. city is grappling with a growing homelessness crisis,” said Mayor Sam Liccardo. “Here in San Jose, we’ve employed innovative strategies to increase the supply of housing for our most vulnerable residents and led a community-wide campaign that is more than half way to our goal to end veteran homelessness in Santa Clara County. However, building upon this success will require a commitment from the federal government to continue investing in and supporting cities’ efforts to advance proven and cost-effective housing-first solutions.”

“In cities across our nation, we are faced with increasing homelessness and income insecurity brought on by a growing affordability crisis,” said Mayor Libby Schaaf. “We need room for innovation, coordination across jurisdictional and agency lines, and every tool available to help foster resiliency in our cities in order to address these chronic issues. In Oakland we have a pilot to support homeless residents living in encampments that also improves quality of life for nearby residents as we work to move people into permanent housing.”

“In Los Angeles, we continue pushing forward with creative solutions that include investing every City dollar available, leveraging existing resources and approving LA’s largest homelessness housing bond to invest $1.2 billion into the construction of homeless housing over the next decade,” said Mayor Eric Garcetti. Our efforts have helped house more than 21,000 Angelenos, but with thousands more still sleeping on our streets every night, we must do more. We need to build on our momentum and take successful efforts to scale. As neighboring Mayors, we have to join our voices and point them towards Washington to ensure our cities get the funding and support they need to tackle this crisis.”

The mayors, speaking in one voice, called for leadership from Washington; citing a long history of bipartisan support, across administrations, for ending homelessness. The federal government, together with states, counties, and cities, has the responsibility to ensure access to affordable, quality housing for homeless residents in need of support. Housing provides the base for personal wellbeing, community stability, and economic growth.

Mayor Edwin M. Lee and Hamilton Families announce The Heading Home Campaign, a public-private partnership between the City and County of San Francisco, the San Francisco Unified School District, Hamilton Families, other non-profits and private philanthropy designed to dramatically reduce family homelessness.

The Heading Home Campaign, a $30 million initiative, has received funding from the philanthropic community, non-profits and the City. The City and County of San Francisco has invested $4.5 million on top of the $35 million spent annually on family homelessness and the campaign has raised $15 million in private funding, including a $10 million challenge/matching grant from Marc and Lynne Benioff. In addition to this generous grant, donations have been received from:

• Salesforce.org
• Hellman Foundation
• Google.org
• Mikkel Svane
• Cari Tuna and Dustin Muskovitz
• San Francisco Giants
• Evelyn and Walter Haas Jr. Fund
• Congregation Emanu-El

“Together we will move hundreds of families into permanent housing, ending the trauma of homelessness for so many children in San Francisco,” said Mayor Ed Lee. “The Heading Home Campaign is a fantastic example of civic leaders, non-profits and the City working together to make San Francisco better for all its residents.”

There are over 1,800 homeless and marginally housed children in San Francisco’s public schools. These include families who are doubled or tripled up, living in a SRO or hotel, in a shelter or transitional housing program, in their car, or outdoors. The campaign’s goal will be to reduce the amount of time these families experience homelessness from today’s average of 414 days to a maximum of 90 days through rapid re-housing.

“In our city where so many have done so well, it’s unacceptable that 1,800 students attending San Francisco’s public schools are homeless,” said Marc Benioff, Chairman and CEO, Salesforce. “I hope that other companies and individuals will join us as we take these initial steps in helping all the homeless children in our city find permanent housing.”

“Through the Heading Home Initiative the City will be able to dramatically change the trajectory of families experiencing homelessness,” said Jeff Kositsky, Director of the San Francisco Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing. “Moving families to permanent housing within 90 days will improve the lives of parents and their children, while improving the shelter system’s ability to accommodate the shelter needs of families in crisis.”

Rapid re-housing rental assistance is an intervention designed to help individuals and families quickly exit homelessness and return to permanent housing. Through Heading Home, a portion of a family’s rent will be paid directly to the landlord for up to 18 months and families will work with staff to find apartments, move in and then stabilize in their new community with ongoing support services. Rapid re-housing assistance is offered without preconditions — like employment, income, absence of criminal record, or sobriety — and the resources and services provided are tailored to the unique needs of the household. Case managers will connect with families on at least a monthly basis to ensure they are following through with their plan, increasing their income, and connecting in the community.

“We are grateful for the leadership of the Mayor’s office, the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing, and the extraordinary support of the Benioffs and other private philanthropists on this effort,” said Clay Smudsky, President of Hamilton Families. “With a common vision and a clear goal we will help over 800 homeless families find housing over the next 3 years.”

The existing partnership that began in 2014 between the San Francisco Unified School District and Hamilton Families is a key component to continuing to help identify and improve outcomes for children experiencing homelessness. The trauma of homelessness can have a devastating impact on the education and brain development of our public-school students and reducing family homelessness will have a positive and lasting impact on students, the school district and our community.

“Children who experience homelessness are much more likely to struggle with school, have behavioral challenges and repeat grades,” said Myong Leigh, Interim Superintendent of the San Francisco Unified School District. “The Heading Home Campaign is a community-wide effort that will dramatically reduce the amount of time children are homeless, helping thousands of students achieve the stability they need to be successful in their studies.”

The Heading Home Campaign builds on the City’s ongoing efforts to address homelessness. Since 2015, there has been a 20% reduction in the number of homeless families in the SFUSD. The new Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing will continue the work of improving the service delivery system for homeless families and will be adding over 300 new units of housing to serve this population. All of these efforts combined will help achieve our goals of making family homelessness a rare, brief and one-time occurrence in San Francisco.

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About the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing: The Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing (HSH) aims to make homelessness in San Francisco rare, brief and a one-time occurrence through the provision of coordinated, compassionate and high-quality services. Established in 2016, HSH consolidates and coordinates citywide homeless serving programs and contracts. For more information please visit: http://dhsh.sfgov.org

About the San Francisco Unified School District: The San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) is the seventh largest school district in California, educating over 57,000 students every year. San Francisco is both a city and a county; therefore, SFUSD administers both the school district and the San Francisco County Office of Education (COE). SFUSD is governed by an elected seven-member Board of Education.

About Hamilton Families: Founded in 1985, Hamilton Families established San Francisco’s first shelter for families experiencing homelessness. Today Hamilton Families is San Francisco’s leading service provider to homeless families, with an array of highly effective programs at sites in San Francisco and Oakland. For more information please visit: https://hamiltonfamilies.org/

For more information on the Heading Home Campaign and how you can contribute, contact Debbie Wilber at dwilber@hamiltonfamilies.org.