For every 10 homeless San Diegans housed over 12 months, 16 became homeless: Report

San Diegans are falling into homelessness at a faster rate than those who are homeless are finding housing. However, the overall number of people experiencing homelessness for the first time is fewer than last year, according to new data from San Diego's Regional Task Force on Homelessness (RTFH).

For every 16 people who experienced homelessness for the first time between October 2022 and September 2023, only 10 people found housing. That ratio was 13 to 10 between October 2021 and September 2022, the data shows.

The RTFH credits several factors for the lopsided and increasing ratio.

"With the lack of more emergency housing vouchers in 2023, an unrelenting increase in the cost of renting across our region, and the lack of large projects, like Father Joe’s Villages’ St. Teresa of Calcutta, coming online, we see the direct correlation between a lack of housing opportunities and exits from homelessness in this data set," the report reads.

The data also shows that 14,258 people experienced homelessness for the first time compared to 15,327 between October 2021 and September 2022.

NBC 7 spoke with Tamera Kohler, the Chief Executive Officer of RTFH, about the report. She emphasized that while the 16 to 10 ratio is not what they want to see, it is promising that less people overall ended up on the street.

"Over 1,000 people less than we saw the previous year," Kohler said. "That is less of a pressure on the homeless system. There's an over-demand of it. We don't have enough shelters. We don't have enough housing."

However, Kohler said our community has not done enough to prevent people from ending up homeless. She added it is a supply-and-demand issue. "San Diego is a high-cost, low-vacancy market and it has an impact," she said.

NBC 7 reached out to the City of San Diego for a response to the report. They sent a statement from Mayor Todd Gloria that read, in part, "The new numbers from the Regional Task Force on Homelessness are sobering, but unfortunately not surprising. The City of San Diego and its nonprofit partners have successfully helped thousands of people off the streets and into permanent housing over the past three years, but we cannot make solve the homelessness crisis without more housing."

The statement also read, "I am doing everything I can to tackle the decades-long undersupply of housing, and I encourage all San Diegans to support measures enabling us to create more homes to reverse the trend we’re seeing now."

More affordable housing could be coming

This week, Gloria announced that five affordable housing projects have been recommended to receive a total of $15.4 million in city funding under an initiative that provides gap-funding assistance to speed construction.

The projects that would be funded under the Bridge to Home initiative would create a total of 400 new affordable homes in five different City Council districts. Of the 400 homes, 96 would be set aside as permanent supportive housing for San Diegans experiencing homelessness.

"With our innovative Bridge to Home program, the city is investing directly in affordable housing projects to address homelessness and provide homes that low-income individuals, families and seniors can afford," Gloria said. "Through three rounds of Bridge to Home funding, we're helping build more than 1,300 affordable homes in neighborhoods all across the city, from Rancho Bernardo to San Ysidro."

In August, Gloria announced the availability of up to $20 million for Round 3 of Bridge to Home, which was launched in 2021 as part of a strategy to spur more affordable homes across the city.

In early October, California awarded $20.75 million in Homekey program funds for two San Diego housing projects for the homeless, with additional funding under consideration for other projects.

More than $16 million from the state is planned to go toward SDHC's proposed purchase and rehabilitation of the Ramada Inn at 3737-3747 Midway Drive in the Midway Community to create 62 affordable single-room occupancy units, to be known as Pacific Village, according to a city statement. An additional $3.9 million will support SDHC's collaboration with Wakeland Housing and Development Corporation to rehabilitate a vacant multifamily housing property at 2147 Abbott Street in Ocean Beach to create 13 affordable housing units.

The bottom line

Kohler said the key to improving homelessness in the San Diego region is to provide affordable housing that leads to long-term placement, not just temporary homes.

"I don't need thousands of shelter beds that become where people are for long periods of time," she said. "I need adequate shelter that connects them to housing and I need a housing market that will work with them on the housing resources we have."