What if the solution to homelessness wasn’t more shelters, but fewer evictions?
In Santa Clara County, a new model backed by tech money and data-driven strategy is quietly redefining how a community tackles housing insecurity. Its method is simple: Catch families before they fall.
Working directly with landlords, a county program provides short-term cash assistance for tenants facing an eviction. The approach is proving far more effective – and cost-efficient – than many traditional programs.
Why We Wrote This
As the housing crisis spreads, Santa Clara County is pioneering a private-public model. It keeps families in their own homes instead of waiting for them to become homeless to help.
In San Jose, the average rent for a two-bedroom apartment is over $3,300 a month – soaring well above the national average of $1,883. For low-income and working families here, the margin for error is razor-thin. Housing instability can start with one missed paycheck or unexpected bill.
Linda Nguyen knows how quickly things can unravel.
The San Jose mom runs her business offering emergency mental health services from home. When a mold infestation led to a serious health diagnosis last winter, she was forced to shut down temporarily. She and her 14-year-old son spent nights in their car to escape the toxic air inside their home.
Even after finding a safer house near her son’s school, Ms. Nguyen struggled to keep up with rent. “It’s ridiculous. I was making six figures and still considered low-income,” she recalls.
Then the county’s Homelessness Prevention System (HPS) stepped in. Within days, the program covered her deposit and first month’s rent. The help came just in time.
“All it takes is one catastrophe – whether it’s mold in the house or your car breaks down,” says Ms. Nguyen, wiping away tears. “There has to be more resources for people like me who do work.”
The data backs her up. Loss of income is a leading cause of homelessness in California, according to a 2023 statewide study from the University of California San Francisco’s Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative. Many homeless residents in the study said a modest subsidy – as little as $300 a month – could have kept them in their homes.
Santa Clara County takes that logic seriously. KJ Kaminski, acting director of the county’s Office of Supportive Housing, sees prevention as one of the most effective tools to address homelessness at its root.
“The more people we can keep out of homelessness, the better,” says Ms. Kaminski. “Not only for our system and the cost to our community, but also for those individuals and families who don’t have to experience the trauma and challenges that come with being unhoused.”
Since the program’s launch as a pilot in 2017, Ms. Kaminski has watched it help thousands of households from falling into homelessness each year. “It may be a short-term intervention, but it is having a long-term impact,” she adds.
In 2023, the Wilson Sheehan Lab for Economic Opportunities at the University of Notre Dame released a study on HPS. It found that the program prevented homelessness rather than just delaying it. Households receiving assistance were 81% less likely to become homeless within six months, and 73% less likely within 12 months, the study says.
“This type of temporary intervention allows people to show their resilience, to get back into a situation of stability, and allows them to be independent,” says David Phillips, the research professor of economics at Notre Dame who co-authored the study.
Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff
Private capital, public good
HPS began as a public-private partnership in 2017 by Destination: Home, a nonprofit working to end homelessness in Silicon Valley.
“Back then in 2017, for every one person we helped off the streets, three became homeless,” says Jennifer Loving, CEO of Destination: Home. “We didn’t have a line of defense to keep families from falling into homelessness.”
In 2018, tech titans Cisco and Apple each contributed $50 million to bolster the nonprofit’s Supportive Housing & Innovation Fund to expand affordable housing and enhance the HPS.
According to Destination: Home, by providing flexible, short-term support and case management without strict caps, over 18,400 households – more than 33,000 people – have been stabilized since 2017. More than 90% remained in their homes two years later.
Last year, Santa Clara County assumed oversight of the HPS. Ms. Kaminski says they’ve learned that it is “an effective model. It made sense to integrate [it] into the broader county system.”
Despite its wealth, Santa Clara is the county with the largest unhoused population in the Bay Area with its largest city, San Jose, ranking seventh in the nation for homelessness. And contrary to common belief, most of its unhoused residents aren’t newcomers. Some 85% of people surveyed during the 2023 point-in-time count reported they were residents of the county when they became homeless. And 54% had lived there for 10 or more years.
While homelessness prevention programs exist in cities like Chicago and Seattle, Santa Clara County’s model stands out for its use of private money and flexibility in offering emergency relief tailored to each household’s needs. On average, families receive more than $7,000 and typically need help for three to six months.
“One of the lessons in Santa Clara is that private investment can spur innovation and public investment can ensure sustainability,” says Jeff Olivet, senior adviser at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health’s Initiative on Health and Homelessness, in a phone interview.
“Unless we can prevent homelessness before it starts, we will never solve homelessness overall,” says Mr. Olivet, former executive director of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness under President Joe Biden. Mr. Olivet is a senior adviser supporting Destination: Home’s efforts and looking for opportunities for replication in other communities across the country.
He warns that communities need to invest in prevention strategies, expand housing supply, and improve affordability. “But it can’t be either-or thinking – it has to be both-ends thinking,” he adds.
Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff
In case of emergency
For Brenda Flores, it took just three weeks for her family to be in jeopardy. She, her husband, and two daughters live in a one-bedroom apartment in a complex in Sunnyvale. Her husband’s income from his construction job supports the family while she raises their daughters, ages 14 and 6.
In 2021, her husband was hospitalized for two weeks from a back injury. The family faced a $2,500 hospital bill. They also missed $1,850 in rent that month because he couldn’t work.
“What we didn’t have for rent, we didn’t have for the bill,” says Ms. Flores in Spanish across a picnic table near her apartment. “It gave us a sense of helplessness not being able to do anything. It wasn’t because we didn’t want to pay the rent.”
Their landlord posted an eviction notice on their door, and the family contacted HPS. Within days, a case manager reached out to the landlord to stop the eviction process.
The program covered the family’s rent for six months and provided a $1,000 stipend toward the medical bill. After two months, Ms. Flores’ husband fully recovered and the family started a savings account. The family still lives in the same apartment.
HPS operates through a network of about 20 nonprofit service providers, working together to connect families with emergency rent, case management, legal aid, and other critical support.
When a resident applies for help, their information is entered into a centralized database accessible by all partner agencies. The goal is to ensure a “no wrong door” approach, so that no matter where someone seeks help, they can be quickly routed to the services they need.
Applicants have to be a county resident, qualify as low-income, face an eviction within 14 days, and be at a high risk of homelessness.
“We just have thousands of families who are one paycheck away from homelessness,” says Ms. Kaminski. “One medical incident that may impact their finances, a loss of a job, or a family separation.”
Ms. Nguyen met Sandra Munoz when she reached out for help in February. Ms. Munoz has worked as a case manager at LifeMoves, an interim supportive housing program, for the past 20 years.
“Every aspect of my work is to prevent homelessness,” says Ms. Munoz. She says her clients usually only need help once. “Every day that I come to work, I am proud of my job.”
Ms. Nguyen says she’s thankful to both Ms. Munoz and the organization for not just helping with rental assistance, but for restoring her trust in community programs.
“I had been carrying this burden by myself,” says Ms. Nguyen. “When Sandra called, I cried tears of joy. Joy and relief. I’m still here because of her.”
Reporting for this story was supported by Verena Martinez in Sunnyvale, California.
