Shelter and Hygiene Overview
Up to 10% of the Our City, Our Home (OCOH) Fund may be appropriated for shelter and hygiene services. Shelter programs give people experiencing homelessness a temporary place to stay while accessing support services and looking for housing.
Data notes and sources
Data notes and sources
Households Served
Households that received services in more than one shelter and hygiene program type are duplicated in total households served.
This year’s report disaggregates the following programs from the category Temporary Shelter referred to in previous reports: Navigation Centers, Emergency Shelters, Trailer Programs, Cabin Programs, and Temporary Hotel Vouchers.
Total Capacity and Capacity Added
Households that received services in more than one shelter and hygiene program type are duplicated in total households served.
This report does not include capacity at the navigation center for justice-involved adults. The OCOH Fund contributes to case management services offered at this facility, but that program receives other funding for overall shelter operations and capacity. However, this report does include information about households served through case management activities.
Following a thorough data review and cleaning process, HSH identified and corrected discrepancies in previously reported figures. As a result, the FY24 annual report reflects slight differences in capacity values compared to those reported in the FY23 version.
Positive Outcomes
This data reflects point-in-time household outcomes.
Exiting a temporary shelter or crisis intervention program to permanent housing, another shelter location, or a treatment program are counted as a positive program outcome. The percentage of households with a positive outcome is calculated by dividing the number of households that exited the program to housing by the total number of households that exited the shelter or hygiene program. Consistent with HUD’s System Performance Measures Programming Specifications, clients that are deceased or exit to certain living situations like hospitals or long-term care facilities are excluded from the measure.
Case Management services provided through Adult Probation in the navigation center for justice-involved adults define a positive outcome as exiting to permanent housing, reunification, or finding a temporary living placement.
The positive outcome rate for temporary hotel vouchers only includes family and TAY UAV programs and excludes outcomes for the DV UAV program.
Please visit the Glossary for additional terms and definitions.
The following program names were shortened in the chart visual:
- Crisis Interventions - Safe Sleep and Safe Parking = Crisis Interventions
- Case management service for justice-involved adults = Justice-Involved Case Mgmt
During Fiscal Year 2023-2024 (FY24):
- The City expended $32.4 million on OCOH Fund Shelter and Hygiene services.
- The City spent 16% less on this service area compared to FY23. Certain shelter and crisis intervention programs established during the Covid-19 Pandemic demobilized by FY24, and the City began implementation of new programs, such as the hotel voucher expansion.
- The City served 3,295 households through OCOH Fund Shelter and Hygiene programs in FY24, 19% more households than in FY23 despite the 16% decrease in spending.
- Through planned demobilizations, the City decreased capacity in certain shelter and crisis intervention programs, resulting in a net decrease of three units of capacity between FY23 and FY24. However, FY24 expenditures supported 1,108 units of total capacity, including an expansion of Emergency Shelter and Temporary Hotel Voucher programs, and the continued operation of 665 units of Navigation Center capacity.
- A total of 943 households that exited the programs (31%) had a positive outcome, a near doubling of positive outcomes compared to 16% in FY23. For Shelter and Hygiene programs, exiting to housing, shelter or treatment locations are all considered positive outcomes.
- Program staff do not always know information about where a household is exiting to when the household leaves the program. The City is working on data improvements to support increased understanding about exits from shelter programs.
The Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing (HSH) delivered most programs in this service area. The San Francisco Adult Probation Department (APD) also delivered one program in this service area.
FY24 Implementation Updates
Navigation Centers
- The City continued to operate several Navigation Centers using OCOH Funds in FY24 with a total sustained capacity of 664 beds.
- Navigation Centers served the most households among Shelter and Hygiene programs in FY24, with over 2,000 households receiving low-barrier services provided through these settings.
- However, Navigation Centers documented the lowest rate of successful outcomes among OCOH-funded Shelter and Hygiene programs, with only 17% of households who exited Navigation Centers documenting a positive outcome during FY24, such as exiting to housing, other shelter, or treatment.
Cabin Programs
- The City continued to operate one Cabin Program supported by the OCOH Fund in FY24, with a total sustained capacity of 70 units at that site.
- While the City performed site preparation work for a new Cabin Program location during the year, this program did not open in FY24.
- The Cabin Program served 141 households in FY24, with 28% of households that exited documenting a positive outcome.
Temporary Hotel Vouchers
- Also referred to as Urgent Accommodation Vouchers (UAV) programs, the City first launched this program in FY23 with an initial 15 vouchers available for families and pregnant persons.
- In FY24, the City expanded capacity by over 360%, adding 54 new voucher slots for families, transitional aged youth (TAY) and survivors of domestic violence.
- The expanded hotel voucher program served 346 households in FY24.
- Among households exiting the program in FY24, 71% documented a positive outcome, which may include moving from a hotel to a longer-term shelter program, to housing or to treatment.
Emergency Shelters
- The City used the OCOH Fund to support operations at three family-serving Emergency Shelters in FY24, funding a total of 150 beds, and increasing capacity by 15 beds in FY24.
- In addition to expanding bed capacity, HSH partnered with local community service providers to expand shelter operating hours at one of the sites.
- Emergency Shelter programs served 195 households in FY24.
- Among households that exited the program, 60% documented a positive outcome.
Trailer Program
- While many temporary shelter programs expanded in FY24, the City demobilized the Pier 94 Trailer Program beginning January 2024. The City first established this program as part of the Covid-19 response.
- The site officially closed to new guests in February 2024 and the City supported the 84 households being served in the program to transition to housing and shelter placements, with 89% of households documented a positive outcome by year-end.
Case Management for Justice Involved Adults
The Adult Probation Department continued operations of a navigation center for justice-involved adults in FY24, and 379 households received OCOH-funded case management support in FY24.
Crisis Interventions
- Crisis Interventions, temporary outdoor safe places to sleep, offered 67 slots in FY24 and served 54 households during that time. These spaces offer access to bathrooms, showers, food, and case management services.
- Safe Parking, also called a Vehicle Triage Center (VTC), allows people living in their vehicles to park overnight and access support services. In FY24, the City sustained capacity at the Bayview Vehicle Triage Center added in the prior year.
- The City operated the South Van Ness Safe Sleep site through October 2023. Like the Trailer Program, the City demobilized Safe Sleep programs, as these were temporary interventions developed as part of the Covid-19 response.
Head of Household Demographics
The City collects demographic data about the heads of households served in OCOH Fund Shelter and Hygiene programs where data is available. Demographic categories include race and ethnicity, age, gender identity, and sexual orientation.
Due to recent changes in tracking requirements by HUD, HSH programs currently show a higher proportion of heads of household in the multiracial category compared to prior reports and a lower proportion of heads of household identifying as Latine compared to data collected in other sources. Not all programs collected sexual orientation data. Please see the Data Notes for additional details.
- Black and African American heads of households made up the highest percentage of heads of households served in OCOH-funded Shelter and Hygiene programs, with 32% of heads of households identifying as Black or African American.
- Approximately half of all heads of households served in Shelter and Hygiene programs in FY24 were between the ages of 25-44.
- Older heads of households aged 45-54 represented the next largest age group, representing 17% of all heads of households served.
- Over 60% of heads of households identified as a man about 35% identified as a woman.
- Nearly 80% of heads of households identified as straight or heterosexual in Shelter and Hygiene programs where sexual orientation data was collected.
Data notes and sources
Data notes and sources
Demographic groups with fewer than ten households are reported as <10 in the table.
Demographic data are reported at the "Shelter & Hygiene" service area level, so households served in more than one HSH program are de-duplicated. Because the Adult Probation Department manages the Billie Holiday Nav Center, demographics for clients served in that program are reported separately and combined with this service area data, therefore some household data may be duplicated in the aggregated report.
Race and Ethnicity
In 2023, HUD updated requirements for how HSH collects race and ethnicity data. Before this change, clients selected race and ethnicity separately and were not able to select 'Latine' as their race. Clients who identified their ethnicity as Latine would be reported as Multiracial if they also selected a non-Latine race. After the update, clients could identify as Latine alone and would not be asked to separately identify as a non-Latine race. Because of these data changes, HSH programs currently show a higher proportion of heads of household in the multiracial category compared to prior reports and a lower proportion of Latine heads of household than may be accurate according to how these households may identify.
Data for Middle Eastern or North African households or clients will be reported for departments in which the data has been made available (i.e., HSH, MOHCD, and OEWD) except for in Permanent Housing. Data provided by other departments (i.e., DPH, FIR, APD, and UAV) did not provide this category as an option and/or did not report on clients using this category.
The following race and ethnicity categories are combined in Data not collected: Other/Unknown, Missing data, and Doesn’t know or prefers not to answer.
The following race categories are combined in “Unknown”: “Data not collected,” “Missing Data,” and “Doesn’t Know / Refused.”
Demographic data for households served by case management services for justice
Gender Identity
Heads of households who identify as Questioning or Non-Binary are coded in the Genderqueer or gender non-binary category.
The following gender categories are combined in Unknown: Other + Choose not to disclose, Unknown, Not listed, Decline to answer.
Sexual Orientation
Sexual Orientation data are not available for heads of household served by the Case Management for Justice-Involved Adults program within Shelter and Hygiene programs.
The following sexual orientation categories are combined in Data not collected: Questioning/Unsure, Other/Not Listed, Not Listed, Other, Missing data, Decline to answer, Data not collected, and Prefers not to answer.
Spending on Shelter and Hygiene Programs
Data notes and sources
Data notes and sources
The OCOH Fund is a special fund which allows unexpended fund balances to carry forward into the following year automatically. The cumulative budget includes prior-year carry-forward balances as well as any budget reductions made to account for revenue shortfalls.
The financial data included in the dashboard was extracted from the City’s financial system after the close of the fiscal year books and all adjustments related to the year-end close occurred.
This year’s report disaggregates the following programs from the category Temporary Shelter referred to in previous reports: Navigation Centers, Emergency Shelters, Trailer Programs, Cabin Programs, and Temporary Hotel Vouchers.
Allocated Costs
This term refers to an allocated proportion of the cost to administer the services funded by OCOH, including information and technology, human resources, database and data management, finance and administration and other program supports. In most cases, the OCOH Fund is not the only source of funding for programs described here, and the allocation of administrative costs to run these programs accounts for mixed sources.
Cabin Programs
The 33 Gough Cabin Program launched as part of Crisis Intervention’s Safe Sleep sites in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The 33 Gough Cabin Program became a Temporary Shelter program at the end of FY23 after Safe Sleep sites were demobilized. Cabin Program expenditures prior to FY24 are included in the Crisis Intervention expenditures. This change in categorization applies only to the financial data as the City reports on the complete programmatic data regarding cabins.
The following program names were shortened in the chart visual:
- Crisis Interventions - Safe Sleep and Safe Parking = Crisis Interventions
- Case management service for justice-involved adults = Justice-Involved Case Mgmt
The dashboards aggregate the prior four fiscal years of budget and expenditures for the Shelter and Hygiene service area (FY21-FY24). The cards at the top of the dashboard show the cumulative expenditures for OCOH-funded Shelter and Hygiene programs and the total amount expended in these programs FY24.
- Cumulatively from FY21 through FY24, the City has budgeted $107.7 million on Shelter & Hygiene programs.
- During that same cumulative period, the City has spent $97 million on Shelter and Hygiene programs, or 90% of budgeted expenditures.
- In FY24, the City spent $32.4 million, a 16% decrease from the prior year.
- Spending on Navigation Centers represented nearly half of all FY24 expenditures in the Shelter and Hygiene service area, at $15.3 million.
- In FY24, the City decreased spending on Crisis Interventions by 70%.
- In FY23, the City expended $12.2 million on Safe Sleep and Safe Parking programs, but with the demobilization of Safe Sleep, the City reduced spending to $3.6 million in FY24 to sustain the operations of the Bayview Vehicle Triage Center.
- Additionally, expenditures for the Cabin Program were included in the Crisis Intervention category prior to FY24; these costs are now captured within their own category beginning in FY24 after the demobilization of the Safe Sleep program.
- Temporary Hotel Vouchers saw a large increase year over year, from $278,520 in total spending in FY23 up to $1.7 million in FY24, a 517% increase.
- This program also saw a significant jump in capacity, from just 15 voucher slots in FY23 up to 69 voucher slots in FY24, expanding family slots and launching new programs for youth and survivors of violence.
Explore the Annual Report
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