What's going well 

The City has expanded its outreach and shelter programs. This has helped many people move indoors and connect to the support they need. The City and County are also working together to better connect shelter, health, behavioral health, and housing services. 

Challenges     

Some people remain unsheltered. This often includes people with higher needs, or those who decline services. The City and the County already coordinate, but gaps still exist between different part of the system. A person may be contacted by outreach, referred to shelter, need behavioral health care, and then wait for housing. When these steps are not well connected, people can wait too long, disengage from services, or return to homelessness. 

What the City is doing

• Connect more shelters to one shared list. The City and County will use the County’s Coordinated Entry System (CES) to help match people to available shelter and housing options. The City is adding 8 sites, bringing the total to 10 City-funded sites connected to the CES.
• Follow each person’s progress. The City and County will strengthen shared tracking so staff can better understand referrals, placements, and each person’s movement through the system.
• Bring care to where people are. The City will work with the County to bring behavioral health services to four City-funded shelter sites, so residents with higher needs can get help where they are.

What’s going well

The City has added more shelter beds. This gives more people a safe place to come indoors from the street. The City is also working to make sure shelter beds are used well, with clearer rules, better referral steps, and improved tracking of which beds are available. 

Challenges

Shelter is meant to be a step toward a permanent home, but finding housing takes time. People may wait on paperwork, benefits, or health care. They may also need help with documentation, clinical stabilization, or referrals to the right housing option. While they wait, fewer beds become available for the next person. When shelter-to-housing movement slows, people stay in shelter longer, and the City has fewer openings for people who are still living outside.

What the City is doing

• Use the same rules at every shelter. All 22 City shelters will follow one clear plan for how people check in and how beds are managed. This shared rulebook is called an Admissions and Continuing Occupancy Plan (ACOP). This will help make intake, referrals, and bed management more consistent across City-funded shelter sites.
• Make referrals faster. Ten City shelters will use shared steps with the County’s referral system — the Coordinated Entry System (CES) — to help people move from the street to shelter toward housing more quickly. This is intended to reduce delays caused by unclear referral pathways and strengthen coordination between City shelter operations and the County’s CES process.
• Show open beds in real time. A new tracking tool at all 22 shelters will show which beds are available. It is part of the County’s Homeless Management Information System (HMIS). This will help staff see openings sooner, reduce duplicate tracking, and make faster placement decisions when beds become available.

What’s going well

The City has made major investments to add shelter and safe parking. This has created more space for people living outside. The City is now focused on keeping these shelters operating over time, while finding ways to reduce costs and bring in other funding sources. 

Challenges

Much of this funding is one-time or uncertain. Without steady funding, the City cannot easily keep shelters open over the long term. Partner agencies face budget pressures as well. At the same time, the City’s shelter system needs funding that supports more than basic operations. It also needs to support services that help people move toward housing, including health and behavioral health care, case management, and other supports. When funding is uncertain or not aligned with these needs, it becomes harder to sustain shelter capacity and improve outcomes over time.

What the City is doing

• Bill health insurance for care. At 3 shelters, the City will test billing Medi-Cal for services that qualify. This program is called California Advancing and Innovating Medi-Cal (CalAIM). It brings in funding to help cover costs. The goal is to connect eligible shelter services to health-care reimbursement, while also bringing more coordinated health-related support to residents.
• Use grants to get started. The City will use grant funding to cover early costs at these 3 shelters. This reduces the amount that must come from the City’s main budget. These funds will help support startup, administration, and initial operations while the City builds the systems needed for CalAIM billing and service delivery.
• Lower everyday costs. The City will share services such as meals, security, and upkeep across all 22 shelters to save money. Where feasible, the City will standardize and bundle these services so shelters can operate more efficiently while maintaining core shelter services.

What’s going well

The City has maintained key waterways and areas around shelter sites, responded to areas with many lived-in vehicles, and protected the space around shelters. This helps keep important public spaces cleaner, safer, and easier to access.

Challenges

Shelter and housing remain limited. As a result, clearing one area often moves people to another rather than ending their homelessness. New encampments and lived-in vehicles can create trash, waste, and safety concerns, and the growing workload is difficult to keep up with. When people do not have a place to go, the same issues can show up again in another area.

What the City is doing

• Protect waterways and shelter areas. The City will maintain No Encampment Zones (NEZs) along 30 miles of waterways and around shelter sites. This helps keep these areas clear and accessible.
• Focus on the largest encampments first. The City will respond first to encampments with more than 5 structures in the areas that are most affected. This helps the City focus on the places with the biggest impacts.
• Clean up health hazards faster. The City will respond more quickly to reports of trash and waste near lived-in vehicles. This helps reduce health, safety, and environmental concerns.
• Help people in vehicles move indoors. The City will start a small program to help people living in vehicles move into shelter or temporary housing. This pilot is called the Vehicle Relinquishment Assistance Program (VRAP). The pilot will test whether this approach can help more people move indoors.