A year ago, the emergency homeless shelter in San Jose run by Family Supportive Housing received about 25 calls a day from desperate families needing a roof over their heads. The amount of calls have skyrocketed this year, with at least 50 calls a day as the phones ring nonstop.
The number of new households becoming homeless is rapidly rising in Santa Clara County, with one in five or 21% being families with children, according to data provided by nonprofit Destination: Home. From 2022 to end of 2023, there was a 24% increase of people becoming homeless for the first time — 4,300 new households. That’s a significant jump from the prior cycle, which saw only a 9% increase from 2021 to 2022.
“It is astronomical. It just breaks my heart,” Beth Leary, executive director of the nonprofit Family Supportive Housing, told San José Spotlight.
Family Supportive Housing, at 692 N. King Road, is the only shelter exclusively serving families. It has 35 large private rooms where the nonprofit provides case management, financial literacy classes and supportive services for the adults and children. There are 60 households on the waitlist.
Traditionally, the shelter has allowed families to stay for three months, offering extensions as needed as families transitioned to permanent housing. But as the pandemic eased, inflation spiked and eviction moratoriums ended, Leary saw two trends — more people becoming homeless and it taking longer for the families they served to find permanent supportive housing.
Families at the shelter can’t transition to permanent housing without financial assistance. This is where Santa Clara County’s rapid rehousing program comes into play. The program helps pay for move-in expenses and deposits, and helps subsidize rent and utilities for up to 24 months.
“Families are waiting a long time to get into supportive housing programs after (they’re) registered,” Leary said. “It’s taking more time now because… rapid rehousing programs are at capacity. That’s the only way they can pay their rent.”
Due to the increase in time it’s taking people to transition into permanent housing, Family Supportive Housing is now allowing families to stay in the shelter for six months at a time.
“Families are doing everything they can, working gig jobs trying to cobble themselves together,” Leary said. “Everything is skyrocketing, making it harder and harder to keep their housing.”
Overall, the county has nearly 10,000 people who are homeless, according to a 2023 count that measures people experiencing homelessness on a single night. The survey is often considered an undercount. For every one person housed nearly two become homeless in the county.
“The homelessness prevention system tries to serve as many of those possible. The problem is… we have a capacity to serve about 1,700 to 1,800 new households in a given year,” Chad Bojorquez, chief program officer at Destination: Home, told San José Spotlight.
Bojorquez said rising rent and inflation coupled with the lack of affordable housing is pushing more people off the edge.
“It’s because COVID protections are over. There are no moratoria. There’s more evictions than ever going to the courts. We can only keep up so much,” Bojorquez said. “Car insurance, medical insurance, these things have skyrocketed in California.”
Nationally, consumer prices have increased 21% since the February 2020. People are spending an average of $1,212 on goods and services that it would have costed them $1,000 prior to the pandemic, according to a Bankrate analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics. Meanwhile, families who are in the county’s homeless prevention system have seen their rents increase by 12% over a period of 18 months, according to data from Destination: Home. 
Overall of the households seeking help for homelessness in the county, 60% are families with children and 76% are women-led households. A majority of households — 90% — are extremely low income.
As the county is gearing up to plan for its next five years in the Community Plan to End Homelessness, Kathryn Kaminski, acting director of the county’s Office of Supportive Housing, said they are looking to expand programs like the homeless prevention system, which provides temporary financial assistance and legal support to people on the brink of losing their homes. Through this program, the county has helped more than 17,000 individuals stay housed.
“Many people are extremely cost burdened,” Kaminski told San José Spotlight. “What we know from data and what folks are experiencing is the greatest challenge we’re facing is lack of affordable housing.”
Contact Joyce Chu at [email protected] or follow @joyce_speaks on X, formerly known asTwitter.
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