FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: May 20, 2021
Contact: Cory Winter, cwinter@hamiltonfamilies.org
Hamilton Families applauds Gov. Gavin Newsom’s commitment to ending family homelessness as part of his May Budget Revision announcement. Hamilton Families has prioritized an inclusive and equitable recovery strategy as critical to the Bay Area’s future. As we build upon this, creating opportunity for families and building the kind of future we all deserve depends on having a decent place to live.
Gov. Newsom’s $100 billion California Comeback Plan includes an $8.5 billion investment to expand homelessness intervention programs — Project Roomkey and Homekey — and the creation of 46,000 new homeless housing units/placements and affordable apartments. The Governor’s plan also proposes a new $3.5 billion investment to functionally end family homelessness within five years by investing $1.85 billion in new housing for families experiencing homelessness, $1.6 billion in rental support and homelessness prevention for families, and $40 million in grants to local governments.
Each of these funding commitments underscores the vulnerabilities we must overcome as a region and state if we’re going to build a truly healthy post-pandemic community and address an equity gap that was spiraling out of control long before the pandemic. At Hamilton Families, two-thirds of the families in our programs filed for unemployment to replace lost income during the pandemic. As a result of that loss, Hamilton Families paid for full rent, food, utilities, internet, childcare, and temporary hotels for many families in our program. We also took pains over the past year to extend most families’ subsidies well beyond the 20-month limit to keep families from sliding back into homelessness. Hamilton Families has sustained additional costs of $85,000 to $100,000 monthly to ensure that these vulnerable families do not return to homelessness, totaling over $1,000,000. This stark reality is a vivid reminder that individuals, families, and communities of color have been disproportionally impacted by homelessness, particularly Black and African American families that are headed by single women, who comprise approximately 75% of our constituents. The need for direct financial assistance to support the access to affordable childcare for single parents of color is critical to their ability to return to work and stabilize their families.
We are concerned that Gov. Newsom’s May Budget Revision lacks specific outcomes and accountability for Black, Brown, and Indigenous families of color experiencing homelessness in our communities. COVID-19 has made the challenges facing our neighbors even more difficult and exposed the racial disparities in our communities. The structural problems we had before COVID-19 put safe, stable housing out of reach for so many people in San Francisco, the Bay Area, and California at large. Decades of racial segregation, injustice in housing policy, and unequal access to healthcare meant the pandemic hit our low-income Black and Brown communities hardest. Funding to address these inequities needs to be explicitly earmarked so that these needs are sure to be met. To recover from this crisis and make sure the Bay Area is resilient enough to face the future, we also need to redesign those unjust policies and invest in housing. We welcome an opportunity to work with the Governor and state leaders to further our collected efforts to end family homelessness.
Hamilton Families is San Francisco’s leading service provider to families experiencing homelessness, with carefully designed programs to prevent homelessness, provide shelter and stability, return families to permanent housing and support the well-being of children experiencing homelessness. To help end family homelessness, visit hamiltonfamilies.org.
###