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White Paper

Hidden from Sight: Tailoring San Francisco’s Point-In- Time Count to Reach ‘Invisible’ Families

In January 2024, the City and County of San Francisco’s Point-In-Time (PIT) Count identified 405 unsheltered homeless families, a 97.6% increase since its last count in 2022. This year, the San Francisco Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing (DHSH) implemented methodological improvements in vehicular counting accuracy and leveraged service provider partnerships to better target historically undercounted populations. DHSH collaborated with family providers to conduct an early morning count of people living in vehicles in known hot spot areas, which allowed for direct identification of families...

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Publication

From Pavements to Patients: How Social Determinants of Health Prevent Homeless Populations From Accessing Primary & Preventive Health Services

I. Navigating the Housing Maze: Where Jobs, Health Insurance, and Homes Play Hide-and-Seek

“So many people have lost their jobs, and then they lose their health insurance. Suppose they get sick with any other medical condition. In that, this can be the perfect storm that makes living on the streets favorable” said master’s thesis recipient, Jessica Bielenberg, from the UW School of Public Health (Eckart, 2020). 

Amongst first world countries, nowhere is the issue of homelessness more striking than in the US. Within this marginalized community, healthcare isn’t a given; it’s something that has to be fought for. As public health analyst Martha Sandoval writes, western Europe, Japan, and Canada are ahead of the US in housing stock (Sandoval, 2023). As homeless people have to constantly fight for human needs like food, shelter, and water, these battles leave a long legacy of after-effects. 
 

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