People experiencing homelessness in the Bay Area face a myriad of individual challenges that make it difficult to obtain permanent housing. Yet there are challenges that are specific to the region that make the path to housing even more difficult. With nine different separate homeless systems of care, there are limited connections across the individual systems, resulting in duplication and inefficiencies. While there is an ever-growing need for housing and supportive services, the resources available to address the crisis in the Bay Area are finite. Most importantly, the impacts of homelessness on Black, Indigenous, and Hispanic/Latin(a)(o)(x) communities are disproportionate and illustrate the broader inequities in the overall system of care.
