Homelessness up in Bay Area, down slightly in San Francisco

Homelessness increased nearly 9% in the San Francisco Bay Area over the last three years, despite hundreds of millions of dollars spent to keep people off the streets during the coronavirus pandemic, preliminary numbers released Monday show. San Francisco appeared to be the one bright spot, seeing homelessness decline slightly.

Alameda County, which includes the city of Oakland, reported a 22% increase in this year’s point-in-time survey, while neighboring Contra Costa County saw a 35% jump in people spotted living in shelters, vehicles or outdoors. The largest county in the region, Santa Clara, reported a 3% increase from 2019, including an 11% increase in the city of San Jose.

San Francisco reported a 3.5% decline to nearly 7,800 homeless residents, which housing advocates chalked up in part to a wealth tax approved by voters in 2018.

In total, seven of the Bay Area’s nine counties reported counting more than 35,000 people experiencing homelessness in late February. The count is required every other year by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and helps determine funding. San Mateo and Solano counties did not report preliminary numbers Monday.

Housing advocates said increases across the region would have been worse without strong and speedy intervention from the state and local government. California Gov. Gavin Newsom made money available at the start of the pandemic to house homeless residents in hotels and eviction moratoriums helped keep people in their homes.