DATA STORY
Shelter Occupancy Rate and Total Temporary Shelter Beds
Tracks how full San Francisco’s year-round temporary shelters are and how many beds are available across the system
This page displays two measures:
- The average occupancy rate for active year-round temporary shelter and crisis intervention programs
- The total number of year-round temporary shelter beds
Occupancy Rate for Temporary Shelter and Crisis Intervention Programs
Measure Description
The Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing (HSH), along with other City departments, contract with nonprofit partners to operate temporary shelter programs. This measure shows the average percentage of year-round temporary shelter beds or units used each month across multiple temporary shelter programs.
HSH funds many different temporary shelter and crisis intervention programs. This measure tracks:
- Year-round emergency shelter programs such as general emergency shelter, navigation centers, and cabins
- Transitional housing
- Crisis intervention programs such as safe parking programs
This measure excludes seasonal and overflow programs. For more information about these programs, please visit the HSH Shelter and Crisis Interventions page.
Why This Measure is Important
Temporary shelter programs are a critical resource that give people experiencing homelessness a temporary place to stay while accessing services and looking for housing.
High occupancy rates show that the City is using shelter resources effectively. HSH and its partners aim to fill shelter beds quickly and reduce the amount of time any bed stays empty. On the other hand, having some beds remain empty means that outreach teams and other referring partners can place people immediately into shelter if needed.
Average Occupancy Rate for Active Year-Round Temporary Shelter or Crisis Intervention Programs.
The chart's legend is below:
- Y-axis: Average occupancy rate for each month
- X-Axis: Month and calendar year
Navigating dashboards with a keyboard
- Control + Enter to enter the dashboard
- Tab or Arrow to move between visuals
- Control + Right arrow to enter a visual or filter
- Escape to exit a visual, filter or dashboard
Navigating within a visual or filter
- Tab or Arrow to move around a table or visual
- Enter to select within a table or visual
- Spacebar to select or deselect a filter
Data notes and sources
Visit DataSF to access the scorecard data.
Data is updated monthly.
Data lag time: 3 weeks
HSH tracks bed and unit level inventory and occupancy in the ONE System. Current reporting includes all year-round temporary shelters and crisis intervention programs that track occupancy in the ONE System and calculates average occupancy rate across every day in a given month. This measure does not include overflow beds or seasonal expansions (i.e. winter shelter).
This page provides a snapshot of all programs. For more operational details on HSH-managed programs, please view HSH’s Occupancy and Capacity dashboard.
How Performance is Measured
The City of San Francisco offers many types of year-round temporary shelter resources. Many of these programs provide a bed in a common room while others provide a person with their own unit. HSH tracks the total number of beds/units in each program and homeless service providers report if each bed or unit was occupied each night. This measure shows the average percentage of year-round temporary shelter beds or units used each day by month.
Averaging between 90-95% occupancy daily ensures that the City is maximizing resources while still having beds available for crisis situations.
Number Of Year-Round Temporary Shelter Beds
Measure Description
This measure looks at the number of year-round temporary shelter beds.
The programs included in this measure are slightly different from the programs included in the occupancy measure above. This measure tracks:
- Year-round emergency shelter programs such as general emergency shelter, navigation centers, and cabins.
- Transitional housing
This measure excludes crisis intervention programs and seasonal or overflow programs. It includes includes programs not administered by HSH. For more information about these programs, please visit the HSH Shelter and Crisis Interventions page.
Why This Measure is Important
Temporary shelter programs are a critical resource that give people experiencing homelessness a temporary place to stay while accessing services and looking for housing. Tracking the total number of temporary resources that the City funds is one way to assess how well the City is meeting the need for shelter.
Number of year-round temporary shelter beds
The chart's legend is below:
- Y-axis: Number of beds
- X-Axis: Fiscal year and quarter
Navigating dashboards with a keyboard
- Control + Enter to enter the dashboard
- Tab or Arrow to move between visuals
- Control + Right arrow to enter a visual or filter
- Escape to exit a visual, filter or dashboard
Navigating within a visual or filter
- Tab or Arrow to move around a table or visual
- Enter to select within a table or visual
- Spacebar to select or deselect a filter
Data notes and sources
Visit DataSF to access the scorecard data.
Data is updated quarterly
Data lag time: 3 weeks.
HSH Inventory based on average daily capacity for a given reporting period.
This page provides a full snapshot of all programs. For more operational details on HSH-managed programs, please view HSH’s Occupancy and Capacity dashboard.
How Performance is Measured
HSH released their strategic plan, Home by the Bay, in early 2023. To meet the goals laid out in the strategic plan, HSH identified the need for 1,075 new temporary shelter beds by 2028.
This measure tracks the total number of units of temporary shelter resources as part of assessing progress towards these goals.
The number displayed on the scorecard pages represents the total number of online year-round temporary shelter beds in the most recently reported quarter.
Additional Information
- View additional information about programs on HSH's website.
- Read more about the Homelessness Response System.
- View HSH's Shelter and Crisis Interventions Dashboard for more detailed operational information on HSH's temporary shelter portfolio.
- Learn more about San Francisco's strategic framework to address homelessness
City Performance Scorecards
This page is part of the City Performance Scorecards.