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  4. San Diego County Services Ecosystem Evaluation)

San Diego County Homelessness Service Ecosystem Evaluation

The Homelessness Hub at UC San Diego is conducting a comprehensive inventory
and assessment of the service ecosystem in San Diego County, with a focus on the
temporary shelter network. This proposal has been developed with Tamera Kohler, CEO of the Regional Taskforce on Homelessness (RTFH), and other stakeholders, including service providers,
people with lived experience of homelessness, and representatives of City and
County.

Project Components

  • Quantitative Analysis to Identify Outcomes Based on Service Type —
    • HMIS data analysis to show trends in exit destinations after shelter use for populations of interest (e.g., veterans, domestic violence survivors, racial/ethnic groups, age).
    • HMIS analysis to show trends by shelter type (i.e., high, mid, and low-barrier).
  • Government and Policy in Creating the Ecosystem –
    • Policy review and interviews to document how cities, county, SDHC, RTFH shape service responses to homelessness.
  • "Case studies” -- use qualitative and document review research strategies to provide a deeper understanding of system processes and barriers to service access for specific populations, including:
    • Survivors of Domestic/Intimate Partner Violence
    • Veterans
    • Older Adults
    • Justice Impacted Individuals
    • Racial/Ethnic Minorities

Project Deliverables

  • Report 1 Homelessness Trends and Overnight Emergency Services in San Diego County, June 2024. Access Report 1 here.
  • Report 2 Passing Through and Staying Put: Emergency Shelter Trajectories in San Diego County, 2018-2023, January 2025. Access Report 2 here.
  • Reports for each component of the project, including separate reports for each case study.
  • Convenings of regional leaders to discuss how to improve service delivery and
    access.
  • Implementation and funding tools that jurisdictions and other entities can use to better
    address service delivery shortcomings.

Collaborative, Community-Engaged Research that Centers Lived Experience

We are collaborating with community stakeholders in three important ways:

  • Community Advisory Board (CAB) — Includes people with expertise in homelessness, policy, criminal justice, health, and/or housing, as well as lived experience of homelessness.
  • Co-Researchers with Lived Experience — Homelessness Hub provides compensated research methods training to individuals with lived experience of homelessness through our Homelessness-Experienced Action Research Training (HEART) Fellowship. HEART Fellows contribute meaningfully to research on housing insecurity and homelessness as active members of the research team. Fellows share their own expertise and insights as they gain research training. Through this collaborative approach to research design, data collection and analysis, the entire team benefits, and the quality of the research is enriched.
  • Cross-University Collaboration — Homelessness Hub, University of San Diego, and Urgent Challenges Collective are collaborative partners on this project.