SAN DIEGO (KGTV) – It’s something you don’t typically hear when it comes to the homelessness crisis in San Diego.
“So we’ve seen this improvement gradually,” Tamera Kohler, CEO of the Regional Task Force on Homelessness San Diego, said.
But,the most recent data in November from the Regional Task Force on Homelessness are showing some promise.
“Where we measure every month the inflow and outflow, we housed more people than we saw experience homelessness. As long as we’ve measured it for the last 33 months, we haven’t seen that trend,” Kohler said.
The November numbers show 894 people fell into homelessness while 950 people were housed.
San Diego’s latest trend comes as the U.S. Housing and Urban Development reports homelessness is up 18 percent nationally from last year.
“I think those trends historically federally are a little bit behind where California; when California has the largest homeless population. Truly it is a combination housing stock that’s affordable and just the overall financial demands on folks,” Kohler said.
Kohler told ABC 10News San Diego’s most recent report is attributed to a couple of things like short-term financial assistance.
“It also has been a really intentional focus on veteran homelessness, on youth homelessness and working with landlords,” Kohler said. “So the ability to house more folks is a combination of rents getting a little bit more stable, a little bit more intentional focus on populations, and doing more of the diversion and prevention work is starting to have an impact.”
What we are seeing is a hopeful sign for some local advocates about what’s being done and working well to curb the crisis.
“How can we look at this progress that has been where more people have been able to get housed and kind of dissect that a little bit better and understand what exactly what was going into play there,” Levi Giafaglione, a homeless and housing advocate, said.
“Now when we go to take the next step, we can repeat those things that we now know are working well.”
Kohler is echoing a similar sentiment and with cautious optimism.
“The trends are really something to watch what works and to help us get on top of it. I’m hopeful but, our numbers haven’t been in this kind of area for 33 months,” Kohler said.
