Home by the Bay: An Equity-Driven Plan to Prevent and End Homelessness in San Francisco is the citywide strategic plan guiding the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing’s work from 2023 to 2028.
This page provides an overview of the Plan’s goals and key action areas.
The Home by the Bay Plan has five main goals:
Goal #1: Decreasing Homelessness
Reduce the number of people who are unsheltered by 50% and reduce the total number of people experiencing homelessness by 15%.
Goal #2: Reducing Racial Inequities and Other Disparities
Demonstrate measurable reductions in racial inequities and other disparities in the experience of homelessness and the outcomes of City programs for preventing and ending homelessness.
Goal #3: Increasing Number of People Exiting Homelessness
Actively support at least 30,000 people to move from homelessness into permanent housing.
Goal #4: Supporting People to Succeed in Housing
Ensure that at least 85% of people who exit homelessness do not experience it again.
Goal #5: Preventing Homelessness
Provide prevention services to at least 18,000 people at risk of losing their housing and becoming homeless
To achieve these goals, HSH is focusing on:
Quality
Improving our system by:
- strengthening operations.
- strengthening outcomes.
Quantity
Increasing the amount of resources available.
The plan advocates for prevention services to serve an additional 4,300 households, 1,075 new shelter beds, and 3,250 new slots of housing.
Strategic Plan Action Areas
Our work is organized into five main action areas.
1. Advancing Racial Equity and Housing Justice
We are focused on structural work to effect change, like:
- Equity- and justice-focused data and analyses.
- Collaborative partnerships and decision-making.
- Building capacity internally and externally.
- Empowering the leadership of impacted communities and people with lived expertise.
- Creating or strengthening initiatives for people who are justice involved, transgender, or gender non-conforming.
This action area is tied to Goal #2: Reducing Racial Inequities and other Disparities. |
2. Enhancing System Performance and Capacity
The actions in this area will improve the overall quality of the homelessness response system’s infrastructure and flow.
- Building and supporting provider capacity and sustainability.
- Enhancing performance management and accountability.
- Development of desk guides and policies.
- Implementing a redesigned Coordinated Entry system.
- Strengthening the quality, diversity, and utilization of data.
- Improving alignment of citywide strategies and resources.
This action area is tied to every goal in the Strategic Plan. |
3. Strengthening Response to Unsheltered Homelessness
Our work in this area will focus on improving services for people on the street.
- Capacity Increase: Add 1,075 new shelter beds.
- Expand services and resources in outreach, crisis interventions, shelters, and transitional housing.
- Address health, behavioral health, and service needs of unsheltered people.
- Connect unsheltered people directly to housing.
- With other city departments, address community impacts and neighborhood concerns.
This action area is tied to Goal #1: Decreasing Homelessness and Unsheltered Homelessness. |
4. Increasing Successful and Stable Entries into Permanent Housing
Actions in this area will increase the quality and quantity of housing options.
- Capacity Increase: Add 3,250 slots of permanent housing (including permanent supportive housing, rapid re-housing, and shallow subsidies).
- Improve access to housing, including housing outside the homelessness response system.
- Enhance services to support housing stability.
- Implement new models for complex care needs.
- Expand work to support people to move from supportive housing into other housing they can afford.
This action area is tied to Goal #1: Decreasing Homelessness and Unsheltered Homelessness, Goal #3: Increasing Exits from Homelessness, and Goal #4: Supporting Success in Housing. |
5. Preventing People from Experiencing Homelessness
These actions will stop more people from having a housing crisis in the first place.
- Capacity Increase: Expand prevention services to serve an additional 4,300 households on top of current capacity between 2023 and 2028.
- Strengthen current prevention strategies and targeting.
- Enhance housing problem solving services for people at the cusp of homelessness.
- Created expanded supply of affordable housing units.
- Develop additional upstream prevention strategies.
This action area is tied to Goal #5: Preventing Homelessness. |
Expansion Targets and Cost Projections
We projected the costs of expanding the homelessness response system with these additional prevention, shelter, and housing resources.
Prevention for an additional 4,300 households.
1,075 new shelter beds.
3,250 new slots of permanent housing.
This expansion of the homelessness response system would require:
- More than $607 million in additional funding during the five-year timeframe of the Plan.
- More than $217 million in additional funding annually after the Plan’s timeframe. This amount would increase with inflation over time to sustain the new investments.
What Makes This Plan Different?
Equity-Driven | Developed with active community engagement/stakeholder input processes and with the partnership of people with lived expertise of homelessness: • Recruited and compensated Community Liaisons with lived expertise to design and implement engagement activities. • Held surveys and focus groups with people currently and formerly experiencing homelessness. |
Reflects Broad-Based Input | • Input sessions with service providers, community leaders & stakeholders representing neighborhood groups, merchant associations, business community, and general public. • Facilitated planning discussions with the HSH Strategic Framework Advisory Committee; the Local Homeless Coordinating Board; the Our City, Our Home Oversight Committee; and other entities. |
Citywide in Scope | • Developed with input from multiple City departments. • Reviewed and considered relevant plans and reports. |
Quantitative System Modeling | • Used the best available data to project how changing the mix and scale of a packaged investment of shelter, housing, and prevention services will impact homelessness. |