Homeless to Housed San José Report
How Underutilized Lands May Help Address Homelessness
The Urban Land Institute’s (ULI) Homeless to Housed (H2H) initiative focuses on identifying best practices and effective solutions for addressing the needs of unhoused people through research, local engagement, and awareness-building activities. This project aimed to identify the greatest opportunity for accelerating the production of deeply affordable housing for individuals and families experiencing homelessness.
Homelessness remains a critical issue in the City of San José and in Santa Clara County, with a 2023 census identifying 6,266 homeless individuals, 70% of whom are unsheltered. The lack of affordable housing, economic inequality, and systemic issues such as racism contribute to this crisis. The H2H initiative seeks to create immediate and implementable actions to address these challenges. In the City of San Jose, like many other cities, churches, places of worship and other non-profit organizations have a mission/desire to help solve the homelessness crisis. Likewise, many of these entities own land that is underutilized and can be developed for emergency interim and permanent affordable housing.
ULI San Francisco (ULI SF) seized on the opportunity to align on three factors:
- available underutilized land;
- motivated and mission-aligned property owners; and
- innovative new public policy that reduces barriers to development.
To explore how best to align these factors to unleash more deeply affordable units for those most in need, ULI SF convened a volunteer Ad Hoc Leadership Committee to help design a program. The program goal was to uncover the challenges and opportunities associated with leveraging these underutilized assets for development of affordable housing.
ULI SF issued a Request for Proposal (RFP) to solicit consultant support. ULI SF, through a H2H grant and additional ULI SF funding, contracted with Silicon Valley at Home (SV@Home), David Baker Architects (DBA), and the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) Bay Area, in support of the City of San José, to facilitate two workshops and document workshop findings in this report. The objectives were to help build capacity of homeless service providers and other non-profit organizations, so they can partner with organizations with underutilized lands—including places of worship and faith-based organizations and affordable housing developers—to design and construct emergency interim and permanent affordable housing projects on their sites. These workshops highlighted the unique advantages of Senate Bill (SB) 4 and the need for partnerships among affordable housing developers, local governments, and various non-profit and faith-based institutions. The project sought to build awareness around the opportunities afforded by the passage of SB 4 and availability of land to generate pathways to provide for more deeply affordable housing not only in San José but throughout the Bay Area and the entire State of California.
Report Summary: The Urban Land Institute’s (ULI) Homeless to Housed (H2H) initiative focuses on identifying best practices and effective solutions for addressing the needs of unhoused people through research, local engagement, and awareness-building activities. This project aimed to identify the greatest opportunity for accelerating the production of deeply affordable housing for individuals and families experiencing homelessness.
Homelessness remains a critical issue in the City of San José and in Santa Clara County, with a 2023 census identifying 6,266 homeless individuals, 70% of whom are unsheltered. The lack of affordable housing, economic inequality, and systemic issues such as racism contribute to this crisis. The H2H initiative seeks to create immediate and implementable actions to address these challenges. In the City of San Jose, like many other cities, churches, places of worship and other non-profit organizations have a mission/desire to help solve the homelessness crisis. Likewise, many of these entities own land that is underutilized and can be developed for emergency interim and permanent affordable housing.
ULI San Francisco (ULI SF) seized on the opportunity to align on three factors:
- available underutilized land;
- motivated and mission-aligned property owners; and
- innovative new public policy that reduces barriers to development.
To explore how best to align these factors to unleash more deeply affordable units for those most in need, ULI SF convened a volunteer Ad Hoc Leadership Committee to help design a program. The program goal was to uncover the challenges and opportunities associated with leveraging these underutilized assets for development of affordable housing.
ULI SF issued a Request for Proposal (RFP) to solicit consultant support. ULI SF, through a H2H grant and additional ULI SF funding, contracted with Silicon Valley at Home (SV@Home), David Baker Architects (DBA), and the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) Bay Area, in support of the City of San José, to facilitate two workshops and document workshop findings in this report. The objectives were to help build capacity of homeless service providers and other non-profit organizations, so they can partner with organizations with underutilized lands—including places of worship and faith-based organizations and affordable housing developers—to design and construct emergency interim and permanent affordable housing projects on their sites. These workshops highlighted the unique advantages of Senate Bill (SB) 4 and the need for partnerships among affordable housing developers, local governments, and various non-profit and faith-based institutions. The project sought to build awareness around the opportunities afforded by the passage of SB 4 and availability of land to generate pathways to provide for more deeply affordable housing not only in San José but throughout the Bay Area and the entire State of California.