For many families, having a home isn’t just about having a safe place to sleep. A stable home provides stability, builds community, and sets them up for the future. But too often, families in our community are being pushed into homelessness faster than our systems are able to build and connect people to permanent housing.
This is why it’s so important to prevent homelessness before it even begins.
In Santa Clara County, Destination: Home is part of a collaborative effort to build effective better solutions to end homelessness. After decades of research into what works in preventing and addressing homelessness, the nonprofit serves as a lead coordinator, partnering with government agencies, nonprofits, people with lived experience of homelessness, housing developers, and the private sector to design and implement effective strategies to prevent and end homelessness.
Destination: Home rallied organizations working on issues related to homelessness including including financial assistance, legal support and case managers in Santa Clara County to set up a shared system. Now, when a resident applies for help at one agency, their information is entered into a centralized database accessible by other partner organizations. The goal is to ensure that no matter where someone first seeks help, they can be quickly routed to the services that fit their needs. The Santa Clara County Homelessness Prevention System, which is coordinated by the County in partnership with Destination: Home and Sacred Heart Community Service, identifies households at risk of homelessness and provides financial assistance, legal support, and case management services to help them remain in their homes.
Since 2020, countywide prevention efforts, including the Homelessness Prevention System, have helped 33,000 people who are at imminent risk of homelessness. In 2024, Santa Clara County fully integrated the Homelessness Prevention System into its official public safety net. Two years after receiving assistance, more than 90% of the households supported by the model remained in their homes.
“There’s this narrative that addiction and mental health issues are driving the homelessness crisis, but we know pretty resolutely that it’s more of an economic issue,” said Ray Bramson, Chief Operating Officer at Destination: Home. “It’s working families, adults with disabilities and senior citizens, so we’re trying to get out more human stories because there are a lot of folks who are unseen.”
Despite the success of the thousands of people helped by the Homelessness Prevention System, homelessness in Santa Clara County continues to persist as it does in California and across the United States.
Historically, California, and particularly Silicon Valley, has attracted people seeking upward mobility and opportunity within the tech industry and through higher education. But, for decades, historical policies and practices have led to a significant racial wealth gap contributing to a disproportionate number of people of color experiencing homelessness in Santa Clara County. Also, as Silicon Valley prospered and more people moved to the region, housing opportunity didn’t grow at the same pace. Today, in Santa Clara County (which includes San Jose, Palo Alto, and Santa Clara), there are only 33 affordable and available rental homes for every 100 extremely low-income renter households.
“The reality is so many people are living completely on the edge right now in Santa Clara County. People are threatened by a host of issues like the loss of benefits to rising costs of living.” said Bramson. “It’s the perfect storm, but it’s also why, when you find an intervention that is so effective, it needs more resources and sustained investment.”
Preventing homelessness is also often more cost-effective than addressing it once someone has lost their home. Once homeless, individuals frequently rely on costly services, such as emergency medical care, and have more interactions with the criminal justice system.
These reactive measures not only strain public budgets but also rarely tackle the underlying drivers of homelessness. They also do not prevent the trauma that people often face as a result of experiencing homelessness. That’s why Destination: Home focuses on ensuring that people are supported with whatever services they need to find more affordable housing or stay in their homes. This often requires coordination across multiple organizations working together through the homelessness prevention model.
Community-Wide Impact
The Packard Foundation has partnered with Destination: Home since 2013 to support infrastructure, strategic planning, and the development of the Homelessness Prevention System.
“Destination: Home listens to people who have been homeless to understand the barriers they have faced and ensure solutions directly address what the community needs most,” said Ellen Clear, the California Communities Director at the Packard Foundation. “We’ve seen how powerful a data-driven approach solution combined with community leadership can be.”
Now, Destination: Home is working to develop pilots in communities across the country to see if the centralized approach will work for other places in preventing homelessness.
An adequate supply of safe and affordable housing is critical for people and families to be able to shape their lives. The Packard Foundation works across California to address many of the complex and connected issues that matter to families, including addressing homelessness, ensuring access to clean air and water and building resilience to the impacts of a changing climate.
Header photo credit: Ana Homonnay
