What data can tell us about Bay Area homelessness
A regional crisis that is changing in surprising ways
Thanks for joining me for the fourth issue of the Golden Stats Warrior, a newsletter focused on data-based insights about the Bay Area. If this is your first time reading, welcome! If you haven’t signed up yet, you can do that here. I have been loving the feedback so far, and am eager to hear what else you would like me to write about.
This week, I want to explore the Bay Area’s profound homelessness problem. For long-time residents and visitors to the Bay, it can be shocking that a region of such enormous wealth has such a large number of people living on its streets. A recent New York Times story described the region as having reached a breaking point, with more residents losing sympathy for the homeless (this is suggested by way of anecdote, not data).
Personally, one of the most shocking experiences of living in the Bay Area is how quickly many of us can get used to having unsheltered neighbors, and walk past them without considering how we let it get this way. Although I don’t know much about how to solve the problem, I want to share a few numbers that might help people better understand the problem.
How many homeless people are there in the Bay Area?
This is an incredibly difficult question to answer, but we know that it was probably at least 28,000 people in 2018. This number comes from the “point-in-time” estimates—the yearly estimates of local homelessness produced by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). The data are collected by volunteers who go out on a late January night and try to identify all of the people living without homes that evening. (Some cities last collected data in 2017, so it may not be exactly accurate to call all of the numbers in the chart below 2018 estimates.)
The data are used to pinpoint where federal homeless services should be targeted. It is almost certainly a large undercount of the actual homeless population. Many people are not found, and others may have found shelter with friends or family for the night, even though they are often without a place to stay. In a terrific article for Street Spirit, editor Alastair Boone wrote about her experience volunteering for the count, and the drawbacks of the method.
(Note: The point-in-time data is presented in a difficult to use form on the HUD website, and I have formatted in a way I hope is easier to use for looking at trends across time. You can download it here.)
Is homelessness getting worse?
The point-in-time estimates have their weaknesses, but they are useful for tracking trends over time, as the methodology doesn’t change much from year to year. This data suggests that though the homelessness crisis may feel like it is getting worse, not a great deal has changed at the regional level in the last decade. The population has hovered around 27-28,000 people.
Perhaps it is because homelessness is concentrated in certain areas that the problem seems to be escalating? For those living in Oakland, Berkeley and San Francisco, that certainly might be part of it. As the chart below shows, those areas have seen homelessness jump in the 2010s.
Yet just looking at overall homelessness numbers doesn’t tell the story. I think the main reason that homelessness is at the top of many Bay Area residents’ minds is the increase in “unsheltered” homeless in the Bay’s biggest cities. From 2000 to 2017, the number of unsheltered homeless grew by more than 1,000 in San Francisco, and almost 2,000 in Oakland/Berkeley. The people who live in the tent camps that are becoming increasingly prevalent are considered unsheltered.
This takes us to perhaps the most important aspect of homelessness in the Bay Area
How does the Bay Area homelessness compare to other major cities?
The share of people that are homeless in the Bay Area actually isn’t all that different than many other major American cities. The public policy nonprofit SPUR points out that cities like Boston, DC and New York have similar rates of homelessness to San Francisco, at around 1% of the population. The big difference is that more of the homeless in Bay Area cities are unsheltered. Whereas less than 10% of New York, Boston and DC’s homeless typically have roofs over their head, over 60% are unsheltered in California’s four biggest cities. My understanding is that this largely has to do with cold weather cities choosing to put more resources into physical shelters, as more people would find it inhumane for people to sleep on the street in cold weather. New York City even has a law requiring that the homeless have a right to shelter.
Are most homeless people from the Bay or do they come from elsewhere?
When I moved to California, I often heard that most of the homeless were not from the area, but came here because of the nice weather. This is not accurate. In Alameda County, for example, 78% of the people counted as homeless said that they last had a home in Alameda County. 57% of people also said they had been living in the county for over 10 years. These numbers are 70% and 55% for San Francisco, which has more of a “magnet effect.” (Thanks to Alastair Boone for pointing me to these numbers.)
These numbers point to the research finding that increasingly expensive housing costs have contributed to homelessness. The large number of unsheltered homeless in the region would almost certainly be lowered if the city built more subsidized and market rate housing.
Bay Area media recommendation of the week
This week recommendation is this terrific article on the history of BART by the San Jose Mercury’s Matthias Gafni. It was published in 2016, but it’s new to me. Gafni explains that BART was built in 1972 to be cutting edge, and a model for future transit systems. Nobody followed. As a result, BART is difficult to maintain. Parts are challenging to replace, and the complexity of the systems design means there are an unusual number of possible problems. Apparently, one of the biggest issues is the phantom train problem, where BART cars stop because they think there is another BART car close by, but there isn’t. (Thanks to Robyn Perry and Suhaib Syed for alerting me to the article.)
(If you read or listened to something great about the Bay Area this week, please send it to me!)
Dan’s favorite things
Each issue I also mention an activity I recommend for those living in the area.
Oakland may have lost the Warriors to San Francisco and the Raiders to Las Vegas, but we have an even better team to replace them. The minor league soccer Oakland Roots played their first game in August, and just finished their first mini-season. I attended two of the home games, which are held at Laney College, and they were a blast—all four home games sold out the 5,000 person stadium. Much of the team is from the Bay Area and the games are a celebration of Oakland culture—musical selections, merchandise and food have a local touch (local retailer Oaklandish made the jerseys). Tickets only cost $20 and the quality of the games were great. The team is also very much not keeping politics out of sports. Check out the the team’s Twitter handle to get a sense of their progressive politics.
Thanks for your time, and see you in a couple weeks.
If you think a friend might enjoy this newsletter, please forward it along. You can follow me on Twitter at @dkopf or email me at dan.kopf@gmail.com
The Golden Stats Warrior logo was made by the great Jared Joiner, the best friend a nervous newsletter writer could have. Follow him @jnjoiner. Also, thanks to the brilliant and supportive Natalie Nava for copyediting.