Home by the Bay: Year Two Progress Report

Home by the Bay: An Equity-Driven Plan to Prevent and End Homelessness in San Francisco is the citywide strategic plan guiding the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing’s work from 2023 to 2028. 

Goal 1: Decreasing Homelessness: Reduce the number of people who are unsheltered by 50% and reduce the total number of people experiencing homelessness by 15%.

Our second year progress toward Goal 1:

Between the February 2022 and January 2024 Point-in-Time (PIT) Counts, the number of people who were unsheltered decreased by 1% and the total number of people experiencing homelessness increased by 7%. The next PIT Count will be held in January 2026, and will provide a more complete update on Year 2 and Year 3 trends.

Goal 2: Reducing Racial Inequities and Other Disparities: Demonstrate measurable reductions in racial inequities and other disparities in the experience of homelessness and the outcomes of City programs for preventing and ending homelessness.

Our second year progress toward Goal 2:

HSH completed a baseline equity analysis and developed an Equity Addendum to Home by the Bay. These efforts established new equity goals and subgoals, aligned with the other four strategic goals, and set up ongoing tracking of disparities in access, housing placements, returns to homelessness, and prevention outcomes for Black, Latine, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander communities, as well as other intersecting identities.

Goal 3: Increasing Number of People Exiting Homelessness: Actively support at least 30,000 people to move from homelessness into permanent housing.

Our second year progress toward Goal 3:

Between July 2024 and June 2025, 4,989 people were supported to move from homelessness into permanent housing, bringing the total since July 2023 to 10,300 people, about 34% of the five-year goal of 30,000.

Goal 4: Supporting People to Succeed in Housing: Ensure that at least 85% of people who exit homelessness do not experience it again.

Our second year progress toward Goal 4:

93% of people who exited homelessness between July 2023 and June 2024 did not return to the homelessness response system within 12 months, exceeding the 85% target.

Goal 5: Preventing Homelessness: Provide prevention services to at least 18,000 people at risk of losing their housing and becoming homeless.

Our second year progress toward goal 5:
Between July 2024 and June 2025, 8,033 people at risk of homelessness received prevention services. Since July 2023, 15,186 people have received prevention assistance, reaching 84% of the five-year target of 18,000.

Expansion Targets

The Home by the Bay strategic plan goals were developed through comprehensive system modeling described in detail in the System Modeling Summary section of the plan. This modeling used local data to assess the productivity of the homelessness response system and to project the impact of additional resources and quality improvements. To achieve the plan goals, the City must add the following interventions to the homelessness response system between July 2023 and June 2028.

Action Area

The City is implementing a comprehensive array of activities to strengthen operations and outcomes across every element of the homelessness response system, leading with a focus on racial equity and housing justice, across five strategic Action Areas.

#1: Advancing Racial Equity & Housing Justice

Focus of activities in the Home by the Bay strategic plan for advancing racial equity and housing justice:

• Equity- and justice-focused data and analyses.
• Collaborative partnerships and shared decision making.
• Internal and external equity-focused capacity-building and non-profit sustainability activities.
• Empowering the leadership of impacted communities and people with lived expertise.

Our second year progress toward Advancing Racial Equity & Housing Justice in the homelessness response system:

• Distributed $1.2 million in Equity Fund capacity-building support to 13 community organizations, including new providers.
• Completed a baseline equity analysis and developed tools and goals to track progress toward Home by the Bay’s Goal 2.
• In partnership with the Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development, exceeded the City’s Ending Trans Homelessness goal by housing or enrolling 200+ transgender and gender diverse people in long-term subsidies.
• Opened 42 units of supportive housing for marginalized youth and a 60-cabin community with on-site In-Home Supportive Services for older adults experiencing homelessness.
• Onboarded HSH’s first ADA Coordinator to improve accessibility standards and deliver disability-focused trainings.
• Secured an $8 million grant to expand record expungement, drug treatment, housing navigation, and bridge housing for justice-involved adults.
• Developed new online resources for housing and services for older adults and people with disabilities.
• Co-chaired a citywide workforce equity committee and contributed to the City’s Racial Equity Action Plan.
• Convened more than 100 stakeholders to develop a youth-specific addendum to Home by the Bay.
• Delivered racial equity trainings to 20 HSH teams and Affirming Trans Access to Housing trainings to more than 600 staff across 65 providers.
• Engaged people with lived experience through design teams, focus groups, and co-facilitation of equity goals.

Read the full report of progress toward this Action Area.

#2: Enhancing System Performance and Capacity

Focus of activities in the Home by the Bay strategic plan for enhancing system performance and capacity:

• Building and supporting nonprofit provider capacity and sustainability.
• Enhancing performance management and accountability.
• Strengthening the quality, diversity, and utilization of data.
• Improving alignment of citywide strategies and resources.
• Implementing a redesigned equitable Coordinated Entry system.

Our second year progress toward enhancing system performance and capacity:

• Secured a $500,000 Tipping Point grant to design a new in-person case management training program, to launch in FY 2025–26.
• Developed a comprehensive Performance Measurement Plan with more than 100 metrics to guide data-driven decision-making.
• Launched a Multi-Year Procurement Plan to reprocure contracts by program area, standardize expectations, and incorporate community and lived-experience input.
• Strengthened accountability through new contract monitoring standards, a Provider Corrective Action Policy, and partnership with the Harvard Kennedy School Government Performance Lab to pilot outcomes-focused performance management.
• Expanded data integration with local Medi-Cal Managed Care Plans through monthly exchanges that improve care coordination.
• The Department of Public Health (DPH) migrated behavioral health services into a new electronic health record system, improving coordination across mental health, physical health, and hospital settings.
• Added family shelter inventory into HSH’s ONE System to better track bed utilization.
• Advanced Coordinated Entry Redesign, including new access standards and exploration of predictive analytics with the Centre for Social Data Analytics.
• Increased reimbursements for CalAIM Community Supports, recovering $3.4 million to date.
• Reduced DPH behavioral health vacancy rates from 22% to 14% and completed 63 HSH staff appointments, including new hires, promotions, transfers, and rehires.

Read the full report of progress toward this Action Area.

#3: Strengthening Response to Unsheltered Homelessness

Focus of activities in the Home by the Bay strategic plan for strengthening response to unsheltered homelessness:

• Adding 1,075 new shelter beds.
• Embedding expanded services and resources within outreach efforts, crisis interventions, shelters, and transitional housing programs.
• Addressing the health, behavioral health, and services needs of people who are unsheltered.
• Connecting people who are unsheltered directly to permanent housing.
• Addressing community impacts and neighborhood concerns.

Our second year progress toward strengthening response to unsheltered homelessness:

• Served more than 9,500 individuals through SFHOT street outreach.
• Launched the Neighborhood Street Teams model with multiple City agencies, improving referrals, shared data, and real-time care coordination.
• Expanded shelter capacity by nearly 300 beds, including new cabins, safe parking, stabilization units, and transitional housing.
• DPH expanded behavioral health and treatment bed capacity, including beds for justice-involved women, daytime shelter beds with substance use services, and overflow capacity.
• DPH applied for $4.4 billion in state funds to add mental health and substance use treatment beds and expand services.
• The Department of Emergency Management’s Community Based Safety Program deployed street ambassadors in key neighborhoods, contributing to 30–60% reductions in 911 calls in those areas.
• DPH scaled overdose prevention work, training 2,200 staff, distributing more than 200,000 doses of naloxone, and updating citywide overdose prevention policies.
• Expanded the RESTORE project to provide on-demand treatment and nighttime shelter placements to more than 2,500 clients.
• The Human Services Agency integrated benefits eligibility workers into shelters, trained 1,000+ providers, and increased connections to public benefits, including through Project Homeless Connect.
• With HSA, served 253 people through the Housing and Disability Advocacy Program and housed 63 clients.

Read the full report of progress toward this Action Area.

#4: Increasing Stable & Successful Entries into Permanent Housing

Focus of activities in the Home by the Bay strategic plan for increasing stable and successful entries into permanent housing:

• Adding 3,250 new units of permanent housing in the homelessness response system, including site-based and scattered-site permanent supportive housing, rapid re-housing, and shallow subsidies.
• Improving access to housing outside the homelessness response system, through direct financial assistance and lighter-touch services.
• Enhancing services to better support people’s housing stability.
• Implementing new models to address people’s complex care needs.
• Expanding efforts to support people to move from permanent supportive housing to other housing they can afford.

Our second year progress toward increasing stable and successful entries into permanent housing:

• Served more than 17,000 formerly homeless clients in permanent supportive housing (PSH) and rapid re-housing in FY 2024–25.
• Lowered the average PSH vacancy rate to 8.5%.
• Co-chaired the Citywide Workforce Alignment Committee to ensure people experiencing or at risk of homelessness can equitably access workforce programs.
• Partnered with DPH to install Emergency Naloxone Stations in all PSH buildings, pilot a peer responder overdose prevention program, and train residents on overdose response and access to treatment.
• Launched a 24/7 onsite health care pilot at Kelly Cullen Community for medically fragile and elderly residents, with plans to leverage CalAIM Enhanced Care Management.
• With the Department of Disability and Aging Services, expanded the Collaborative Caregiver Support Team to provide enhanced services for 1,615 In-Home Supportive Services clients across 77 PSH sites.
• Developed and launched Housing Support Plans in the ONE System to standardize goal-setting and support CalAIM cost recovery.
• With MOHCD and OEWD, worked to streamline office-to-housing conversions and support new financing tools, including HUD’s Restore-Rebuild program and additional low-income housing tax credits.
• Supported a pipeline of 1,100+ site-based PSH units, including Homekey+ projects, faith-based partnerships, and more than 250 units in neighborhoods with fewer affordable housing options.
• Expanded CalAIM supports for older adults with disabilities, including Enhanced Care Management and Community Supports that help residents transition from institutional settings to community housing.

Read the full report of progress toward this Action Area.

#5: Preventing People from Experiencing Homelessness

Focus of activities in the Home by the Bay strategic plan for preventing people from experiencing homelessness:

• Expanding prevention services to serve 4,300 additional households.
• Strengthening current homelessness prevention and eviction prevention strategies and targeting.
• Enhancing housing problem solving for people at risk of homelessness who have not yet entered the homelessness response system.
• Creating an expanded supply of affordable housing units.
• Developing upstream prevention strategies that prevent people from experiencing housing crises and risks of homelessness.

Our second year progress toward preventing people from experiencing homelessness:

• In partnership with the Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development, provided prevention services to 8,000+ people in Year 2.
• Engaged more than 11,000 households in problem-solving services, resolving over 700 households’ homelessness crises.
• Introduced a new vulnerability index, developed with MOHCD and DPH, to prioritize emergency rental assistance for households most at risk.
• Completed a third-party evaluation of the San Francisco Emergency Rental Assistance Program, which found that households receiving assistance were 40% less likely to experience homelessness than those who did not.
• Expanded the shallow subsidy program to reduce rent burdens and support transfers for households leaving rapid re-housing, helping prevent returns to homelessness.
• Through the Human Services Agency, disbursed $1.8 million in payments to 149 former foster youth via the state-funded Foundations for the Future guaranteed income pilot.
• Continued the Trust Youth Initiative pilot with Larkin Street Youth Services, providing direct cash transfers to youth experiencing homelessness as part of a randomized controlled trial.
• Completed a 12-month pilot with 60 households demonstrating housing transfers as an effective stabilization strategy.
• Voters passed Proposition G, establishing the Affordable Housing Opportunity Fund to provide rental subsidies for extremely low-income households.
• Worked with MOHCD to advocate for state funding for senior housing subsidies and housing for formerly incarcerated individuals.

Read the full report of progress toward this Action Area.

Read the full Home by the Bay: 2023 to 2028 Strategic Plan.