As part of his comprehensive strategy to get people experiencing homelessness off the streets and into care, Mayor Todd Gloria announced that 1,731 unhoused San Diegans have been connected to housing, shelter and social services at a dozen different focused outreach events across San Diego since last fall.

“What ends homelessness is housing, and these coordinated outreach events provide opportunities to meet people where they are with the purpose of connecting them with services and putting them on a path to permanent housing,” Mayor Todd Gloria said. “Allowing people to live on the streets is inhumane, and we will continue to hold these events as long as there are people who need our help.”

Since October 2021, the City’s Homelessness Strategies and Solutions Department, in partnership with dozens of other government agencies and social-service organizations, has led coordinated street outreach events in City Heights, Midway, Barrio Logan, Balboa Park, Barrio Logan, Logan Heights, Ridgeview-Webster, Rolando Village, Hillcrest, North Park, Ocean Beach, Mission Bay and Mission Beach.

The acceptance of services by unsheltered residents are tracked by providers, who establish relationships with the goal of ultimately getting every client into a permanent home with the support they need to successfully end their homelessness. To date, the City’s coordinated outreach events have resulted in the following outcomes:

• 1,470 individuals received critical health services such as wound care and medical referrals 
• 181 were placed into short-term or long-term housing 
• 504 people progressed toward housing readiness by securing identification and other documents required by prospective landlords 
• 903 accessed self-sufficiency programs and services, such as CalFresh, general relief, Medi-Cal and CalWorks for families with children.

These events stemmed from a month-long pilot concentrated outreach effort developed by the San Diego Housing Commission following the vision of Mayor Todd Gloria in the July 2021. Seeing the collective impact of the collaboration between the City, County, Regional Task Force on Homelessness and community organizations, the concept was operationalized by the newly formed Homelessness Strategies and Solutions Department in the fall. Since October 2021, this multi-disciplinary outreach approach has evolved to include over 20 consistent community-based providers in addition to City and County agencies.

The City’s provides and publishes after-action reports detailing services provided at each of the Coordinated Outreach Events are available on the Homelessness Strategies and Solutions website at https://www.sandiego.gov/homelessness-strategies-and-solutions/data-reports.