What cities can learn from Bakersfield’s brief success ending chronic homelessness - Los Angeles Times
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What cities can learn from Bakersfield’s brief success ending chronic homelessness

Map of Bakersfield on a crumpled cardboard sign
(Los Angeles Times illustration; map via OpenStreetMaps)
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Good morning. It’s Tuesday, April 23. Here’s what you need to know to start your day.

Inside Bakersfield’s short-lived success

City leaders across California have struggled to prove they can move the needle on homelessness. For a moment, Bakersfield and Kern County were an exception. A brief, fleeting, pre-pandemic moment.

For the record:

2:35 p.m. April 25, 2024An earlier version of this report said Bakersfield reached functional zero homelessness. The city and county reached functional zero for chronic homelessness, a specific designation that does not apply to all unhoused people.

Officials there focused their efforts on a specific goal: Reaching functional zero for chronic homelessness.

Before we dive in further, let’s define those terms:

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Chronic homelessness applies to people who experience homelessness for at least a year, or off-and-on over three years, and have been diagnosed with conditions including substance use disorder and serious mental or chronic illnesses, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Functional zero is when the number of people leaving chronic homelessness and finding permanent housing is equal to or greater than people still in homelessness.

The metric is a response to an unfortunate fact about the homelessness crisis: The system meant to respond to homelessness isn’t capable of keeping up with the crisis in a way that ensures it’s a rare and brief event in people’s lives. That’s according to Beth Sandor, who leads the Built for Zero program for the nonprofit Community Solutions.

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“There are excellent programs providing excellent services that people need,” Sandor told me last year. “The question is: Is all of that work adding up to fewer people experiencing homelessness this month than last month?”

Bakersfield is one of only five communities that reached functional zero homelessness

Bakersfield and Kern County adopted functional zero as a goal in 2015 and by January 2020, it was one of only five communities across the U.S. to hit the mark, according to Community Solutions, which published a case study back in 2021.

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In terms of raw numbers, it’s a small figure — the county housed about 70 people, mostly in Bakersfield.

How Bakersfield made it happen

The city and county’s homelessness response system kept track of each individual person identified as chronically homeless.

That access to quality data was key, according to Rick Ramos, interim executive director for the Bakersfield-Kern Regional Homeless Collaborative, because “at any single time, we know every single individual within that subpopulation that is experiencing homelessness.”

“That way, we can really concentrate our efforts on getting them either connected to the resources they need, or exited into a permanent housing destination,” he said.

Bakersfield’s achievement proves “it’s possible to build a system of support that ensures their most vulnerable neighbors can leave homelessness behind,” the case study reads. “This does not mean that no one will ever experience homelessness again, but rather that the community has proven homelessness does not need to become inescapable or a way of life for a group of their most vulnerable neighbors.”

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Both Sandor and Ramos pointed to a few key characteristics that made meaningful progress on homelessness:

  • Dynamic, real-time data that allow government agencies to understand the fluctuation in people experiencing homelessness.
  • Cooperation and unity among agencies and service providers working toward a well-defined, common goal
  • Responsive leaders “with the capacity to be looking across the whole system” who can solve problems and prepare for future challenges
  • Strong engagement from the healthcare systems and a powerful political advocacy

It’s important to note that Bakersfield and Kern County weren’t just finding temporary shelter for people. A “positive exit” from homelessness means having an actual home with “the same kind of rights to tenancy that you have when you have signed a lease or, buying a home,” Sandor said.

Compare that to the metrics of progress touted late last year by Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, who announced that “more than 21,000 unhoused Angelenos have come inside” in 2023.

Those numbers refer to Angelenos placed in interim housing, including motel and hotel rooms, congregate shelters and tiny homes. From the federal and L.A. County perspective, they are still considered unhoused — just sheltered as opposed to unsheltered. Times columnist Erika D. Smith noted that those temporary stays are likely to drag on.

The 2023 Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count showed chronic homelessness jumped 18% from the previous year, and an even higher share of those Angelenos were living outdoors.

Bakersfield ultimately could not sustain functional zero homelessness

Sandor said one key issue has been securing “last mile” access to affordable units, a challenge playing out throughout the state. Another factor: Key city leaders were considered so successful they were promoted into other roles, Sandor said.

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Then there was the historic pandemic, Ramos noted.

“A lot of the work that we were doing prior to reaching functional zero for chronic homelessness… was being done in person,” he said.

The organizations tasked with addressing homelessness have also struggled to maintain their data-monitoring capacity. Sandor said Community Solutions has been helping them build that back up.

“We have a high degree of confidence they’ll get there again,” she said.

It’s all about housing

Margot Kushel, a professor of medicine and director of the Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative at UC San Francisco, told me it’s impressive when any community can reach functional zero, especially in California.

But delivering results like Kern County was able to achieve pre-COVID relies on much more than homeless service systems are able to control, she explained. Even if those systems were functioning perfectly (which they don’t, she noted), they’re treating the symptoms — not the root causes that continue to push people into homelessness.

“If you put all of your resources into the emergency solutions [such as] shelters, you remove the problem from the public eye,” Kushel said. “You maybe — on a very modest level — improve outcomes.” But to make real progress? She had one foolproof solution:

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“The rates of homelessness and the ability for people to exit homelessness really has everything to do with the availability and affordability of housing for low-income folks.”

This week’s series exploring homelessness solutions continues Wednesday. We’ll head to San Diego, where fed-up business leaders are floating their own solution as the deaths of unhoused residents surge.

If you missed the first installment of the series, you can read it here.

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