Despite funding influx, California homelessness crisis grows in Alameda County

While service providers say homelessness counts can be useful, some doubt the data’s accuracy.

Jonathan Russell, chief strategy officer at Bay Area Community Services, said the count can help assess the need for increased state and federal funding for nonprofits. However, he said, “Everyone knows it’s not representative of the flow and breadth of the experience of homelessness.”

Although EveryOneHome estimated 9,747 Alameda County residents are homeless this year, Russell thinks the number is closer to 15,000. While some advocates think homeless people have been moved into the county from other areas, data show otherwise. His team operated three Roomkey projects in Contra Costa County and believes the population looks larger because the county has "more open space and spread out homelessness, just by the way the county is structured."

CityTeam Oakland takes a different approach, using private funding for outreach. Executive director Angela Aguilar said Oakland has many “working poor” families and individuals who are homeless due to high costs of living. By contrast, their San Francisco team sees more cases of people arriving from other counties with substance use issues.

Aguilar said she thinks the Alameda County organized homeless aid well, but temporary program closures were hard on homeless people. She fears that with temporary protections like the eviction moratorium and unemployment aid ending, more people will be in precarious situations as rents increase.

“My concern for the population we serve is that they’ll find themselves in another impossible situation of a different kind,” Aguilar said. “As resources shift yet again, what’s going to happen again to our unhoused and unstably housed in Oakland?”

California Homeless Union attorney Anthony Prince said he thinks homelessness counts are “deeply flawed” because many homeless people are not on the street. 

“They’re hidden away, doubling or tripling up in apartments,” he said. “Even those who might be on a street at any given time might be somewhere they can’t be counted.”

Prince said cities must stop taking punitive approaches by clearing people from public areas without housing them.

“Stop counting people and start housing people,” he said “I think the sweeps are definitely intensifying, and the intensity of sweeps has the political objective of making life miserable for homeless people.”

In Berkeley’s People’s Park, some are fighting a likely sweep while they stay on UC Berkeley property.

University spokesperson Dan Mogulof said the property will be cleared this summer to build student housing, though no deadline is set. He said about 64 people at the site were told the park will soon close, and about 18 households out of 30 who expressed interest have been moved into Berkeley's Rodeway Inn. About 35 still sleep at the park every night.

June Nelson of the organization Defend People’s Park said there will be resistance when UC officials come to clear the park.

"They’re trying to maintain the image that they’re helping with homelessness, but they’re actually just contributing to the same cycles," she said.

Nelson said a report on Project Roomkey sites prepared by the group Where Do We Go Berkeley found sites like Rodeway Inn are not providing adequate food and safety measures. The city did not respond to requests for comment about the report. 

Still, some park residents say they hope to get a room in the motel. 

Tyson Guerrero arrived in Berkeley three months ago from Phoenix, Arizona, after losing his job during Covid layoffs.

“Everybody treats me good, nobody bothers me," he said of the park's residents. "If you don’t know where to go when you come here, the social workers come to you.”

Guerrero said he is relieved to finally be on a list to get a motel room with his dog.

“It’s got a shower, I can buy food, I can microwave,” he said, adding he hopes to soon have his own home in Berkeley.

But some people may be homeless for years before getting approved for transitional housing. 

Sharon Cornu, executive director of the nonprofit St. Mary’s Center, said state funding helped place 40 seniors in permanent housing for about $700 per person last year. But she’s worried about how the state will address a growing number of homeless seniors, most becoming homeless for the first time after turning 50, “surviving on $942 a month.”

“For every person exiting homelessness, there are two new people being pushed into homelessness,” Cornu said. “What we really need to see is the state get serious about housing. We need housing that will remain affordable.”

St Mary’s operates three transitional houses in Oakland where seniors live while receiving case management and food. At Presentation House, where Hall — the woman who lost her home in 2016 — lives with roommates like Carolyn Sutton, many residents are over the age of 60, have lived in Oakland for decades and were homeless for at least five years. 

Sutton said she spent years bouncing between overnight shelters and friends’ homes around the county after being evicted. She was relieved to get her own room at St. Mary's Presentation House after sleeping around large groups of people.

“I had enough faith to believe I had to get where I needed to be safe," she said. But she has spent six years hoping to get her Section 8 housing voucher back, and struggles with communal living.

“I’m not used to being under anybody's roof but my own," Sutton said.

Hall, Sutton’s roommate since 2020, got good news this month — she was approved for her own apartment in Oakland. She said she is grateful to soon have her own home, where her son can visit. 

“I waited patiently, and I tried not to count my chicks before they hatched,” Hall said. “I think good things are going to be happening, I really do.”

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