Homelessness and Housing Information
Use the resources and information below to inform your advocacy efforts and to learn more about homelessness and housing issues.
Orange County Specific Information
The 2019 Point in Time Count was an effort by the County of Orange, City Net, 211 OC, and other service providers to count the number of people without homes in Orange County.
This study was a joint effort by Orange County United Way, Jamboree, and the University of California, Irvine, to calculate the cost of homelessness to communities, as well as the cost of housing solutions.
United to End Homelessness debunks eight of the most prominent myths concerning those without homes.
United to End Homelessness has a number of informative resources on homelessness in Orange County.
The Kennedy Commission works to advocate for extremely low income individuals in Orange County by increasing the amount of affordable housing available. They have a number or resources and further information available on their website.
Housing is a Human Right Orange County has a number of different resources to learn more about homelessness and housing first solutions.
To view the talk "How the H--- did we get here? Affordable housing in Orange County" by Maya Dunne, Mary Ann Gaido and Cesar Covarrubias, click the link below.
The YIMBY, or Yes in My Backyard action network has a variety of resources on homelessness and housing advocacy.
To view the Emeritus Institute Dorothy Marie Lowry Distinguished Guest Lecture "Can Your City (and Mine) Solve Homelessness" by David Kiff click on the link below.
State and National Information
The state of California requires that cities plan to meet the housing needs of all of their citizens. As a result, they give RHNA numbers to each city to outline the housing that must be planned for the future.
A 2017 study by the RAND corporation showed that Housing for Health, a housing first approach to homelessness taking place in LA, actually reduced the county's spending on homelessness by 20% through permanent supportive housing.
The National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty put together a comprehensive fact sheet on the number of people without homes across the nation, the demographics of those people, and the causes of their homelessness.
The National Alliance to End Homelessness has a number of resources with information on homelessness in the nation and specific fact sheets for states, including California.
The Public Policy Institute of California provides a snapshot of the growing issue of homelessness in California.
In 2019, the court case Martin v. Boise established that people without homes can not be punished for sleeping in public when no alternative shelter is provided. This was a landmark case for homelessness advocacy, and it is still changing the way cities react to homelessness.