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By Marisa Kendall, CalMatters

Maybe the way out of California’s homelessness crisis is to prevent it in the first place,  rather than focusing only on people who have already lost their housing. 

That’s the thinking behind a program in Santa Clara County — and others like it around the state — that has gained traction and will soon test its strategy beyond California. 

These prevention programs have found that with a payment of several thousand dollars, aid organizations can head off someone’s homelessness. That both prevents the trauma that comes with losing a home, and saves the state or local government the potentially tens of thousands of dollars it takes to help someone after they become homeless. 

The Santa Clara County program by nonprofit Destination: Home recently inspired the launch of 10 more pilot projects throughout the country, marking the first large-scale, multi-state test of this strategy. If it works in those test counties, advocates will push for a nationwide program. 

Meanwhile, a bill introduced this year in California would require the state to come up with a broad homelessness prevention strategy. 

“The single most obvious answer to homelessness is to not let it happen in the first place,” said Jennifer Loving, CEO of Destination: Home.

Focusing on prevention marks a significant shift in thinking. Traditionally, cities, counties and the state reserve their resources for helping the people in most dire need — those currently living on the street — get back on their feet. The problem with that strategy is that for every one person they move into housing, multiple other people fall into homelessness. That leaves cities spinning their wheels without meaningfully lessening the problem. 

But prevention has its own challenges: The aid is most effective when it goes to people imminently at risk of losing their housing, and determining exactly who that is can be tricky. Several Bay Area communities use a questionnaire to evaluate how likely someone is to wind up homeless unless they get help. A Los Angeles County program uses artificial intelligence. 

“The risk is you give out a lot of precious resources to people who otherwise would be able to prevent homelessness on their own, and that takes away from things like emergency shelters or transitional shelters or permanent supportive housing,” said Jim Sullivan, director of the University of Notre Dame’s Lab for Economic Opportunities. His team evaluated Santa Clara County’s prevention program and found that people who received prevention funds were 78% less likely to become homeless than people in similar situations who got no funds. 

Even among the people who didn’t get prevention funds, the overall rate of homelessness in these studies tends to be small (in Santa Clara County, 4.1% of people who didn’t get help became homeless, compared to 0.9% who did get help). That’s because, despite the very visible humanitarian crisis on the streets of California, statistically speaking, homelessness is still extremely rare, said Janey Rountree, executive director of the California Policy Lab at UCLA, which helped develop a similar program in Los Angeles County. The vast majority of people are able to keep a roof over their head by getting help from family or friends.

How homelessness prevention works

Destination: Home helped launch Santa Clara County’s first homelessness prevention program in 2017. At the time, there wasn’t much help available for people on the brink of homelessness. Families staring down looming evictions were told to call back once they actually ended up on the street. 

With a budget of $1 million secured through donations, the program helped 200 households that first year. Over the following years, the nonprofit got results — and buy-in from county officials. Now, the program has an annual budget of $30 million (most of which is publicly funded) and serves 2,500 households per year.

The program appears to be making a dent. Prior to its existence, for every homeless person who got housing, another three lost their homes. Now, for every one person housed, the math works out to 1.7 people losing their homes, according to Destination: Home.

People who apply to the program hear about it in different ways, including through food banks and other service providers, by word of mouth and through outreach workers in eviction court. Then they fill out a questionnaire designed to assess how likely they are to become homeless. Multiple factors could put them at greater risk: if they have experienced domestic violence, have been homeless before or are disabled, for example. If they check off enough risk factors, they qualify for aid.

Over the past year, people accepted into the program received an average of about $6,500 (including if they returned multiple times for help), most of which went directly to rent, security deposits and other housing expenses. Participants can use the money to address whatever problem is threatening their housing, including fixing their car so they can get to work, paying for a hotel while they are between apartments, covering medical expenses or paying down a credit card debt if the large monthly payment is hurting their ability to pay rent. 

Participants can come back for help multiple times if they need, and many do. 

“We’re providing temporary assistance to folks that are facing long-term, systemic problems, and we don’t expect that hanging out with us for a few months is all of a sudden going to increase the supply of affordable housing or living-wage jobs,” said Erin Stanton, director of family assistance at Sacred Heart Community Service, which coordinates the aid.

Now, Destination: Home is expanding its prevention model to 10 new places across the country, including San Mateo County in California, as well as Miami-Dade County, Florida; Atlanta, Georgia; Austin-Travis County, Texas; communities in Alaska and multiple tribal communities in Minnesota. The idea is to see if the model can be successful outside of Santa Clara County and to see how it might be tweaked depending on the community it is serving. The needs in an economically depressed community, or one saturated by addiction, will be different from those in a rapidly gentrying area, for example. 

Destination: Home, which raised nearly $80 million for this effort from private donors, is giving each community $500,000 to plan their own homelessness prevention program modeled after Santa Clara County’s, and then at least $5 million to run the program for three years. The first programs are expected to launch this fall. 

The University of Notre Dame will evaluate the programs to see if they work. If they do, Destination: Home plans to push for a nationwide prevention strategy. 

San Mateo County signed on to be a test community because it’s an “exciting opportunity,” said Amy Davidson, director of the county’s Center on Homelessness. The county already runs an emergency financial assistance program, but it doesn’t screen participants to determine who is most likely to end up on the street. With Destination: Home’s help, the county will launch a second program that more specifically targets people at risk of homelessness. 

“It seemed like a really great learning experience for us to try to learn what works really well, and what haven’t we done that we could consider doing,” Davidson said.

Lower rates of homelessness

Five other Bay Area communities, including San Francisco and Oakland, already have similar prevention programs, which together have served more than 30,000 people. They’re supported by the organizations All Home and Bay Area Community Services, which helped fund the programs and developed a standardized online form that evaluates each applicant’s risk of homelessness. A sixth program in Marin County is set to launch later this year. 

In San Francisco, participants were 40% less likely to end up homeless than those in similar circumstances who didn’t get help. Between March 2023 and February 2025, less than 5% of program participants became homeless within a year of receiving prevention funds, compared with 8% of similarly situated people who didn’t receive funds.

In Los Angeles County, people helped by the Homelessness Prevention Unit were 71% less likely to later end up in a homeless shelter or use street outreach services. As in Santa Clara County, the overall rates of homelessness are still small: Less than 2% of people enrolled in the program became homeless and used street or shelter services within 18 months, compared to a little more than 6% of people in similar circumstances but not enrolled in the program.

Los Angeles County’s tool is unique because it uses AI to predict who is most likely to become homeless. Participants don’t apply to the program. If the AI model picks them out, program staff cold-call them and invite them to participate. 

The county is still testing the program, and a detailed analysis is expected next year. In the meantime, local leaders have thrown their support behind it. The county recently poured additional Measure A funding into the program, and is launching a new prevention program focused on young people. 

Feeding off the momentum generated by these efforts, a bill introduced this year would require the state to establish a statewide homelessness prevention strategy by July 2027. The state is expecting a budget deficit this year, and Assembly Bill 1924 doesn’t come with funding. But supporters say it’s still a step forward.

“Now that we have proven models from the Bay Area and LA, we believe that it’s time for the state to be doing more to articulate goals and strategies for having a prevention program, with the hope that in the future if there’s more budget surplus those strategies could get better funding,” said Irene Farnsworth, director of regional homelessness prevention for All Home, which is co-sponsoring the bill by Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel, a Democrat from Encino. 

‘They won’t just leave you hanging’

Desiré Campusano knows how to hustle. She’s crashed with relatives when she couldn’t afford rent and worked multiple jobs at once. But in 2021, something unexpected happened: She became an emergency foster parent to two of her young relatives. She felt herself foundering.

That’s when she found Santa Clara County’s homelessness prevention program. It helped her stay afloat as she navigated moving into her own apartment in Milpitas, changing jobs and suddenly becoming a single guardian to two children. 

She asked for help twice that year, once receiving her full rent payment of $1,575, and once receiving $1,000 to help her get by. The next year, her rent increased and she asked for help each time she couldn’t quite make the payment — for example when the kids got COVID and couldn’t go to day care, so she had to miss work and not get paid. She got help four times that year.

“I’d be fine for a month or two, and then I’d need it again,” Campusano said. 

In 2023, her rent went up again and she had to move out. She went to stay with her godfather in Hollister, but that meant a grueling commute to San Jose for work every day. Then, at the start of 2025, Campusano moved into a subsidized apartment in San Jose. The county’s homelessness prevention program helped her secure the apartment by paying her first and last month’s rent.

That ongoing support was a gamechanger for Campusano, who finally feels like she’s back on her feet. She’s now teaching sociology and Mexican-American history at San Jose City College.

“They won’t just leave you hanging,” she said. “They’ll make sure you feel stable.”

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

KEA‘AU — The 2026 BIIF track and field season continued over the weekend, with Kamehameha-Hawaii hosting the meet for the second straight week.

Konawaena senior star Violet Schaut made her return to the track after missing last week’s meet, making her mark with wins in the girls 100 (12.37s) and girls 200-meter dash (25.19s). Schaut was also part of the 4×100 relay team with Kaella Masters, Jazmin Fillmore and Dasha Kala — winning the race in 50.19 seconds, which was a stadium record.

Schaut, who continued her dominant runner career by establishing herself as one of the best in the state in 2025, is picking up right where she left off in the new season — collecting seven total wins through two meets.

Schaut’s teammates, siblings Paxton Sokham and Aden Sokham, had a nice day on the track — with Paxton Sokham finishing first in the boys 400-meter with a personal-best 49.94-second finish and placing second behind Aden Sokham in the 100.

The Sokhams were also part of the winning 4×400 relay team with Kareem Walker and Lucas Carvalho. who broke a venue record with a time of 3:29.95.

While Konawaena looked strong in the short-distance races, Kealakehe made its mark in the long-distance ones — as sophomore Zadie Bolton took victories in the girls 800 (2:27.62) and girls 3,000-meter race by over 20 seconds (11:13.01). Bolton has had a strong season already, earning six individual wins through three meets in long-distance running.

Fellow Waverider Elisa Childers, one of Kealakehe’s strongest long-distance runners, won the 1,500-meter run in just over five minutes, 26 seconds. The senior also placed second behind Bolton in the 3,000 race (11:35.54). Teammate Lily Marhsall won the girls 400-meter dash with a personal-best time of 1:04.65.

In the boys long-distance bouts, Hawaii Prep junior Jack Soon-Ludes claimed victories in the 800 (2:08.48) and 1,500-meter race with a season-best time of 4:22.24. Through three meets, Soon-Ludes has won five long-distance runs.

Leading the hurdles once again was Kamehameha-Hawaii junior Judah Kanoa, who won the boys 110-meter hudles for the third time this season with a time of 14.54 seconds. In the 300 hurdles, Kanoa won for the second straight week, crossing the finish line at the 39.89-second mark.

Kanoa was also part of the Warriors’ 4×100 relay team that won in 43.93 seconds. His fellow teammates on the squad were Iopa Quintana, Hawaii Iokepa and Tanoatoa Muskat.

Kanoa has been outright dominant in the boys hurdles since last season, and has already collected six individual race wins thus far.

In the field events, Kohala junior Mari Ontiveros broke a venue record in the girls shot put — throwing for a distance of 12.57 meters (41-03.00).

In the discus throw, both the boys and girls winner notched personal bests — Kamehameha’s Chanse Kaaua-Long throwing 47.44 meters (155-08) and Hilo’s Wai Krismunando launching 31.19 meters (102-04). Saturday marked Kaaua-Long’s second straight week winning the event, while it was Krismunando’s first win of the year in any event.

Leading the high jump was Kohala sophomore stud Na‘i Rivera, who won the boys contest with a leap of 1.75 meters (5-09.00) — equaling his personal best that he set last season. Rivera has won the high jump twice in 2026.

In the pole vault, both winners matched their personal-best launches — Kaimanamaikalani Bowman of Kamehameha leaping 3.96 meters (13-00.00) in the boys field and teammate Taliya Nishida clinching the girls contest with a vault of 3.04 meters (10-00.00).

Bowman has won the boys pole vault thrice this season, while Nishida has won the girls portion twice.

Konawaena senior Trenton Wong Yuen earned his second long jump win this season after matching his personal-best leap of 6.64 meters (21-09.50). Kealakehe’s Ia Pabre won the girls triple jump after launching a season-best 9.70 meters (31-10.25).

The season will continue this weekend in North Hawaii, as Hawaii Prep is set to host this upcoming Saturday’s meet.

Visit https://live.athletic.net/meets/58847 to view the full results from this past weekend’s contest.