Summary
Homelessness Prevention is an Our City, Our Home (OCOH) Fund service area that supports programs designed to prevent homelessness. Homelessness prevention programs provide legal services, financial assistance, and support services to households at risk of eviction and homelessness in order to maintain housing or find suitable alternative housing. The OCOH Fund designates that up to 15% of the Fund may be appropriated for homelessness prevention services.
During the two-year period of this report, Fiscal Year 2020-2021 (FY20-21) and Fiscal Year 2021-2022 (FY21-22), the City expended $17.1 million and served 8,992 households through OCOH-funded prevention services. During the two-year period, the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing (HSH), the Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development (MOHCD) and the Department of Public Health (DPH) delivered OCOH-funded prevention services.
Spending on Homelessness Prevention
During FY20-21 and FY21-22, the City budgeted a total of $85.7 million on prevention programming, and expended $17.1 million during that timeframe. By the close of FY21-22, the City had encumbered an additional $8.9 million in contracted services carrying forward into the coming fiscal year. Encumbered funds are already obligated to a specific purpose, such as through a contract or grant, but not yet disbursed. When combined, the City spent or encumbered 30% of the budgeted funding during the two-year period. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, federal programs like the CARES Act and the Federal Treasury Emergency Rental Assistance Program, as well as local programs, provided significant levels of funding for rental relief. As a result, the City implemented OCOH-funded homelessness prevention services more slowly than originally planned, and will leverage the OCOH funding appropriated for these purposes as other sources decline.
Over the two-year period, the City initiated most of the budgeted Homelessness Prevention programs. The largest portion of expenditures funded Targeted Homelessness Prevention Services, with $6.3 million expended over FY20-21 and FY21-22. This service area includes financial assistance for households at highest risk of homelessness to retain housing or quickly find new housing. See the next section for more information about when OCOH-funded capacity was added to the system.
The dashboard below aggregates a two-year budget inclusive of FY20-21 and FY21-22. The cards at the top of the dashboard show the total two-year budget for OCOH-funded Prevention programs, the total amount expended in these programs during FY20-21 and FY22, and the amount of funding encumbered as of June 30, 2022. The bar chart in the dashboard below shows the total two-year spending within each category of OCOH-funded Prevention programs.
Homelessness Prevention: Budget, Expenditures, and Encumbrance
Data notes and sources
Data notes and sources
The two-year budget reflects a cumulative amount budgeted from July 1, 2020 through June 30, 2022, including all budget revisions during the two-year period. The OCOH Fund is a special fund which allows unexpended fund balances to carry forward into the following year automatically. The revised two-year budget includes the FY20-21 carry-forward balances; the revised budget also includes budget reductions made to account for revenue shortfalls during FY21-22.
Two-year expenditures reflect a cumulative amount expended from July 1, 2020 through June 30, 2022. Most OCOH funds were on reserve beginning July 1, 2020, with a portion of budgeted funds released from reserve as of December 16, 2020, and additional funds released from reserve in June 2021. Certain expenditures in FY20-21 occurred after December 16, 2020, though most expenditures occurred after June 2021.
This dashboard does not reflect reclassified General Fund advances of costs budgeted and expended prior to FY20-21. FY20-21 and FY21-22 financial data included in the dashboard was extracted from the City’s financial system after the close of the FY21-22 books and all adjustments related to the year-end close occurred.
Implementation of Services and Capacity Added
While certain Homelessness Prevention services were implemented in FY21-22, several programs were in planning or procurement processes throughout the fiscal year. Funds and services delivered through most of the OCOH-funded Homelessness Prevention programs may be applied flexibly according to the needs of the clients. As a result, the capacity added to the system through OCOH funding will also vary depending on the needs of the clients and the funding available. See Households Served and Outcomes section below for more detail about how many households were served.
As of August 2021, the City provided deeper rent subsidies to some tenants of its permanent supportive housing programs to standardize rent levels across the City’s portfolio of permanent supportive housing to no more than 30% of residents’ income. Approximately 2,400 households received an increased rental subsidy to support them to sustain their housing.
The City initiated its Targeted Homelessness Prevention services as of August 2021. These programs provide households with flexible financial assistance to maintain housing or quickly return to housing. Services are targeted to households most likely to become homeless based on researched risk factors, particularly extremely low-income residents with housing vulnerabilities.
Eviction Prevention and Housing Stabilization programs provide legal services, emergency rental assistance and support services for households at risk of homelessness. The City initiated procurements for this program during FY21-22 and began delivering services by the end of the fiscal year.
Problem Solving conversations are creative, strengths-based conversations that help people explore all safe housing options available to them and identify possible resolutions to their housing crisis without waiting for shelter or housing from the Homelessness Response System. Problem Solving solutions can include, but are not limited to, mediation with family, friends, landlords, or others, family reunification, relocation assistance or limited financial assistance to help preserve or secure housing.
The City administers Problem Solving primarily through its eleven Coordinated Entry Access Points, as well as shelter programs and other settings. The City opened a new Veteran’s Access Point as of November 2021, and processed a procurement for a new Access Point for Justice-Involved Adults scheduled to open in the coming fiscal year. As of February 2022, the City implemented Problem Solving services and funding across twelve family shelters. Additionally, the following services were budgeted and in planning stages, but not implemented during FY21-22:
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Increase funding capacity for Problem Solving grants at existing adult, family and TAY Access Points
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Skills Training for Access Point staff
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Direct cash transfer program for TAY
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Two-year workforce services pilots for adults, TAY and families
During the two-year period, the City also used OCOH Homelessness Prevention funds to provide bonus pay for front-line workers at City-funded homelessness prevention programs.
Homelessness Prevention funds were used to support a portion of programming related to delivering behavioral health and clinical services in permanent supportive housing. These services are being reported in the Mental Health section of this report.
Households Served
During FY20-21 and FY21-22, 8,992 households received homelessness prevention services funded by OCOH. Programs funded with OCOH Eviction Prevention and Housing Stabilization funding served over 5,400 households. The Permanent Supportive Housing Rental Subsidy supported over 2,400 households.
Service providers conducted thousands of problem solving conversations during FY20-21 and FY21-22. It is not currently possible to stratify problem solving conversations by funding source in order to show the number of problem solving conversations funded by the OCOH Fund. Instead, data shows 173 households for whom problem solving conversations led to a resolution that was funded using the OCOH Fund. The Targeted Homelessness Prevention Program served 939 households between its launch in August 2021 and June 2022.
The dashboard below shows the total number of households served through OCOH-funded Homelessness Prevention programs during FY20-21 and FY21-22, where data is available. The bar chart shows the number of households served through each category of OCOH-funded programs.
Homelessness Prevention: Households Served
Household Outcomes
Homelessness Prevention is successful when a household retains their housing or finds a safe, indoor solution to their housing crisis outside of the Homelessness Response System. As of June 30, 2022, 85% of households served by OCOH-funded homelessness prevention services had a positive outcome.
The cards at the top of the dashboard below show the number of households served, the number of households served with a positive outcome, and the percent of households served with a positive outcome where this data is tracked. Programs where outcome data is not tracked are excluded from the percentage of households with a positive outcome.
The bar chart shows the percent of households served through OCOH-funded Homelessness Prevention programs during FY20-21 and FY21-22 by category of Prevention program, where data is available. Programs where outcome data is not tracked are excluded from the percentage of households with a positive outcome.
Problem solving is excluded from the dashboard below because only positive outcomes are reported in the data. Problem solving data shows 173 recipients of problem-solving conversations had an OCOH-funded resolution that led them to secure stable housing.
Homelessness Prevention: Household Outcomes
Data notes and sources
Data notes and sources
These data reflect point-in-time household outcomes. For households that were participating in a homelessness prevention program as of June 30, 2022, these data reflect their outcome as of that date. For households that exited a homelessness program prior to June 30, 2022, these data reflect their housing outcome at the time they exited the program.
Homelessness Prevention is successful when a household retains their housing or finds a safe, indoor solution to their housing crisis outside of the Homelessness Response System.
Households Demographics
The City collects demographic data about the head of household for households served in OCOH-funded prevention programs. Demographic categories include age, gender, sexual orientation, race, and ethnicity.
Over 2,600 heads of households served in prevention programs identified as white. About 2,000 heads of household identified as Black, African American, or African and Multi-Racial. Over 2,100 heads of household identified as Hispanic or Latin(o)(a)(x).
Prevention services are concentrated among households where the head of household is between 25 and 55. Few households with a head of household under 25 received prevention services.
Most heads of households served identified as male or female. About 160 heads of households identified as transgender, genderqueer or gender non-binary, less than 2 percent of total household served.
Most heads of households identified as straight or heterosexual. However, sexual orientation data was missing for over 2,400 households, over a quarter of all households served.
Household Demographics: Race and Ethnicity
The following dashboard shows the race and ethnicity of the head of household for all households served through OCOH-funded Prevention programs during FY20-21 and FY21-22, where data was available.
Race and ethnicity are often collected separately, though practices vary across departments. The dashboard below provides ethnicity of heads of households within the cards at the top of the dashboard. The cards at the top of the dashboard show the number of households by ethnicity of the head of household, including heads of households who identify as Hispanic/Latin(o)(a)(x), those who identify as non-Hispanic/Latin(o)(a)(x) and those whose ethnicity was unknown. The bar chart in the dashboard shows the number of households by the race of the head of household.
Homelessness Prevention: Head of Household Race and Ethnicity
Data notes and sources
Data notes and sources
Following Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) standards, HSH collects data on household race and ethnicity in two separate questions. MOHCD collects race and ethnicity together in one question. MOHCD race and ethnicity data was recoded to match the HUD reporting categories following the department’s standards for HUD reporting.
Households that identified as “Latino” in MOHCD programs were recoded to the “Multi-Racial” race category. Households that identified as “Middle Eastern, West African or North African” in MOHCD programs were recoded to the “White” race category.
Households that identified as “Latino” in MOHCD programs were recoded to the “Hispanic / Latin(a)(o)(x)” ethnicity category. Households that identified as any race or ethnicity besides “Latino” were recoded to the “Non-Hispanic / Non-Latin(a)(o)(x)” ethnicity category. Households who had missing data were coded in the “Unknown” ethnicity category.
The following race categories are combined in “Unknown”: “Data not collected,” “Missing Data,” and “Doesn’t Know / Refused.”
Household Demographics: Age
The following dashboard shows the age range of the head of household for all households served through OCOH-funded prevention programs during FY20-21 and FY21-22, where data was available.
Homelessness Prevention: Head of Household Age
Data notes and sources
Data notes and sources
Demographic groups with fewer than ten households are reported as “<10” in the table and with a grey bar in the graph reflecting the number 10. Fewer than 10 households served in OCOH-funded homelessness prevention programs had a head of household under 18 years old.
Household Demographics: Gender Identity
The following dashboard shows the gender identity of the head of household for all households served through OCOH-funded prevention programs during FY20-21 and FY21-22, where data was available.
Homelessness Prevention: Head of Household Gender Identity
Data notes and sources
Data notes and sources
HSH and MOHCD used slightly different gender categories in their reporting. Some gender categories were recoded so that data from both departments could be reported together. Heads of household who identified as “Trans Female” or “Trans Male” for an MOHCD program are coded in the “Transgender” gender category. Heads of household who identified as “Questioning,” “A Gender Other than Singularly ‘Female’ or ‘Male’,” or “No Single Gender” for an HSH program are coded in the “Genderqueer or Gender Non-Binary” gender category. The following gender categories are combined in “Unknown”: “Data not collected,” “Decline to answer,” “Other,” “Unknown,” “Not Listed,” and “Client Doesn’t Know / Refused.”
Household Demographics: Sexual Orientation
The following dashboard shows the sexual orientation of the head of household for all households served through OCOH-funded Prevention programs during FY20-21 and FY21-22, where data was available.
Homelessness Prevention: Head of Household Sexual Orientation
Data notes and sources
Data notes and sources
The following sexual orientation categories are combined in “Unknown”: “Client Refused,” “Data Not Collected,” “Unknown,” “Missing Data,” “Decline to Answer.”
Glossary
The glossary provides definitions for certain terms and program names used on this page.
Encumbrance
Funds obligated to a specific purpose (e.g., under contract or grant), but not yet disbursed.
Targeted Homelessness Prevention Services
Flexible financial assistance to maintain housing or quickly return to housing for low-income SF residents at highest risk of homelessness.
Eviction Prevention and Housing Stabilization
Legal services, emergency rental assistance and support services for low-income households at risk of eviction and displacement.
Permanent Supportive Housing Rental Subsidy
Additional funding provided to support existing tenants in site-based permanent supportive housing in order to lower their rent to no more than 30% of their income.
Problem Solving
A creative, strengths-based conversation that helps people explore all safe housing options available to them and identify possible resolutions to their housing crisis without waiting for shelter or housing from the Homelessness Response System. Problem Solving solutions can include, but are not limited to, mediation with family, friends, landlords, or others, family reunification, relocation assistance, or limited financial assistance to help preserve or secure housing.
Return to the OCOH Fund Annual Report Table of Contents to view other sections of the report.