Mayor London Breed Issues Journey Home Executive Directive To Reunite More People With Family Outside of San Francisco

San Francisco, CA - Mayor London N. Breed today issued the Journey Home Executive Directive to prioritize relocation support and services for people experiencing homelessness in San Francisco. The Directive will require all City Departments and staff to offer relocation assistance and services before providing any other City services, including housing and shelter.

This comes as Mayor Breed has expanded the Journey Home program as well as additional relocation support services that offer return travel expenses in recent years, including the Problem Solving Relocation Assistance and County Adult Assistance Program (CAAP) Relocation Assistance programs.

Journey Home
Mayor Breed's Directive provides clear and comprehensive guidance to all departments with staff that engage with individuals experiencing homelessness, including the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing (HSH), Human Services Agency (HSA), and Department of Public Health (DPH). The Directive requires the following:

• Mandates all City and contracted staff who directly engage with individuals experiencing homelessness to offer access to one of the City's relocation assistance programs before offering any other City services, including housing and shelter.
• Requires first responders, including police officers, firefighters, and paramedics to be provided with handouts that provides information on the City's relocation services and a contact number.
• Establishes a tracking system that will publish data measuring the effectiveness of each program.

Why the Executive Directive Matters
The City's 2024 Point-in-Time (PIT) Count found that San Francisco is experiencing an increase in people who experience homelessness coming to the city from elsewhere compared to previous counts.

Of the individuals surveyed as part of the 2024 PIT Count:

• 40% responded that they either came to San Francisco from another California county or out of state - up from 28% in 2019.

Similarly, the number of people who had been living in San Francisco less than year also increased:

• 37% of those surveyed who had been previously housed say they had been living in San Francisco for less than a year when they became homeless, up from just 15% in 2019.

This was matched by a significant decrease in long-term San Franciscans who had become homeless, showing that San Francisco's efforts to expand housing and homelessness prevention efforts are reducing homelessness:

• People who had lived in SF for 10+ years before becoming homeless dropped to 14% surveyed from 43% in 2019.

"San Francisco continues to be committed to investing in effective programs that offer services to help reconnect people living on our streets with their homes as part of our ongoing efforts to address homelessness here in our city," said Mayor Breed. "While we will always lead with compassion and we have made significant expansions in housing and shelter, we cannot solve everyone's individual housing and behavioral health needs. We've made significant progress in housing many long-time San Franciscans who became homeless, but we are seeing an increase in people in our data who are coming from elsewhere. Today's order will ensure that all our city departments are leveraging our relocation programs to address this growing trend."

Journey Home: San Francisco's Relocation Services
Journey Home offers travel assistance and temporary shelter for people experiencing homelessness and/or people with substance use disorders. Journey Home brought together all of the city's relocation services under one umbrella. It is part of San Francisco's efforts under the Drug Market Agency Coordination Center (DMACC) for unhoused people and people with substance use disorders.

Since 2005, San Francisco has been providing relocation services through its program, previously known as Homeward Bound, which only offered bus tickets for individuals in need. In July 2022, HSH launched its Problem Solving Relocation Assistance program, an initiative that builds on and replaced Homeward Bound. This program offers travel assistance, coordination with support networks, and flexible financial assistance for moving into housing in new communities.

"Relocation and reunification services are a critical component of our Homelessness Response System," said Department of Homelessness said Supportive Housing executive director, Shireen McSpadden. "This compassionate and effective resource in our system has reconnected thousands of people experiencing homelessness with their stabilizing networks of family and friends."

"The San Francisco Human Services Agency is committed to connecting our clients who are experiencing homelessness with the services they need," said Trent Rhorer, Executive Director, Human Services Agency. "Sometimes the most effective service that HSA can provide to our homeless clients is paying for their travel to reconnect them with their families or support networks in the city they used to live."

Mayor Breed's Homelessness Response
Since taking office in 2018, Mayor Breed has significantly expanded and improved San Francisco's homelessness response system, leading to the number of people living on the streets to reach the lowest level in at least 10 years. Under her leadership, San Francisco has expanded shelter beds by over 60%, increased housing slots for formerly homeless individuals by over 50% and added 400 behavioral health treatment beds.

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