Ray Bramson

Chief Operating Officer, Destination: Home

Housing and Homelessness Columnist

Column contributed second Monday of every month

Ray works systematically to meet Destination: Home’s goals by addressing key staffing, process, and infrastructure issues, while also overseeing the organization’s housing loan portfolio, grantmaking, and development functions.

Having focused on homelessness and affordable housing issues for the majority of his career, Ray previously worked for the city of San Jose, leading the city’s Homelessness Interventions and Solutions Division for over five years.

Prior to joining the city, he was a philanthropy manager at Silicon Valley Community Foundation, and before that Ray worked with HomeFirst–a Santa Clara County safety net organization–as director of development.

An alumnus of UC Santa Barbara, Ray spent the year following his graduation with the AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps serving impoverished communities throughout the southeastern United States. He is a senior fellow with American Leadership Forum Silicon Valley and a board member for Housing Matters. Ray is also currently pursuing his Masters in Liberal Arts from Stanford University.

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Columns

October 12, 2026October 12, 2026by Ray Bramson

Bramson: We can’t fix homelessness without sharing power

With less than a month until the midterm elections, Americans are being offered competing visions for the country’s future. Questions about government spending, public safety, economic security and the role of federal institutions are dominating the political conversation. And homelessness, as it so often does, has become another battleground in a much larger ideological fight....

Columns

A makeshift tarp tent under a tree near a creek in San Jose, California

September 14, 2026September 14, 2026by Ray Bramson

Bramson: A plan that promises progress, not miracles

There is an increasingly popular story being told about homelessness: We’ve tried everything. We’ve spent billions of dollars. Nothing works. It’s an understandable conclusion. Anyone who lives in Santa Clara County can see that homelessness remains painfully visible. Our latest count found 10,711 people experiencing homelessness on a single night. And for every household we...

Columns

Two single-family homes under construction

August 10, 2026August 10, 2026by Ray Bramson

Bramson: What Hollywood can teach us about California’s housing crisis

Summer blockbusters are built around a pretty straightforward idea: spend a lot of money to make something people will pay to see. Movies like “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” and Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey” involve enormous investments because studios believe there is an audience large enough to generate an even larger return. When that calculation works,...

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