Housing and Homelessness in San Diego CountyHow has San Diego County responded to the dual affordable housing and homelessness crises and where do we go from here?
Melinda Verhage
(University of Michigan )
The largest population of people experiencing homelessness in the US live in California, a reality that is exacerbating by a significant shortage in available affordable housing units and the case in San Diego can be used to understand which policies are successful at intervening in the cycle of homelessness and which policies only reproduce more harm.
Growing up in San Diego, I watched the price of housing climb alongside the ever growing number of tents that could be spotted under highway over-passes. My family was priced out of the market, but we had the marginal fortune of being able to afford to move out of the city and out of the state. The housing market in San Diego is not an anomaly in California, nor is the significant presence of people experiencing homelessness, which is why the city should be studied to better understand how to handle these concurrent crises. Particular attention will be paid to the experiences and attitudes of both the un-housed and housed. Finally, recommendations for future actions and policies will be discussed.