Catalyzing Bold Investments

With a strategic plan in place and some early successes using the Housing First model, the coalition was ready to double down on efforts to end homelessness. But, even as these efforts ramped up, housing options were becoming even more scarce—especially those that were affordable to the community’s lowest-income residents. At the time, the California Housing Partnership estimated that more than 67,500 additional homes were needed to meet the needs of extremely low-income and very low-income residents across Santa Clara County.

In February 2015, the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors formed a housing task force, which included representatives from the public, private, and nonprofit sectors, that met on a monthly basis for nine months and released its final report in December 2015. One of its primary findings was that new sources of funding were needed for new housing development – including a Regional Supportive Housing Services and Development Fund, which the Board of Supervisors adopted with $64 million in annual allocations for developing new housing and investing in supportive services. The task force also recommended that cities consider initiating ballot measures that would earmark funding for affordable housing.

Securing Key Sources of Funding

2016 Measure A Affordable Housing Bond

Recognizing that bold new investments were critical, leaders at the County of Santa Clara decided to go big. In 2016, the Board of Supervisors placed a $950 million affordable housing bond measure on the ballot (known as Measure A) – with $700 million of that set aside for extremely low-income housing, permanent supportive housing and rapid rehousing. For decades, these types of housing never got built — they were simply too expensive without substantial incentives – but after the “Home Not Found” study showed that status quo approaches were not cost-effective, momentum grew to secure significant funding to develop deeply affordable housing.  

The basic theory that everybody deserves a safe and healthy place to lay their head, we were able to convey that through lots and lots of stories. And for a moment in our community, people weren’t blaming folks for being homeless.

Cindy Chavez, Supervisor for District 2, Santa Clara County

Public polling in early 2016 showed just under the two-thirds support needed to pass the ballot initiative, known as Measure A, with less than 10% of voters still undecided. Members of the coalition worked in partnership with other elected officials, affordable housing advocates, and community organizations to champion Measure A. Supervisor Cindy Chavez- who was a key architect of the measure  – campaigned heavily for its passage, and the South Bay Labor Council was hired to run the grassroots campaign to convince residents to vote yes. Through op-eds, key endorsements, and “get out the vote” campaigns, advocates secured Measure A’s passage with just over 67% of ballots in favor.

Since its passage, the Measure A Affordable Housing Bond has been a critical catalyst for a surge in production of deeply affordable housing development in Santa Clara County. In fact, this robust, dedicated pool of money has been used to develop or renovate over 5,000 affordable apartments across 50 different developments in 11 cities. 

The Private Sector Steps Up

Even with nearly a billion dollars earmarked for affordable housing development, there was still a need for flexible capital. With residential land scarce and competition coming from the private real estate development sector, there was a need for money that could be deployed quickly and nimbly in order to acquire land and fund predevelopment activities ahead of more rigid public funding. So, Destination: Home began exploring opportunities to more deeply engage the private sector and raise private funding that could help fill this critical need.

At the same time, Chuck Robbins, CEO of Cisco – a networking technology company headquartered in San Jose – had begun talking to members of the coalition about the homelessness challenge in the community. Tech companies are major players in the landscape of Silicon Valley, but also contribute to the rapidly rising cost of living in the region, which disproportionately impacts the poorest residents first.  And Robbins was interested in how he could play a meaningful role in addressing this important issue. 

There doesn’t always have to be a direct line to your business, if it affects the community in which you operate, where you work, and where your employees live. We want those communities to be thriving.

Erin Connor, Director of Crisis Response, Cisco

In 2018, Cisco made a $50 million grant to Destination: Home to support the coalition’s efforts to end homelessness – at the time, the largest corporate philanthropic contribution ever made to address homelessness in the U.S. and a key catalyst in the coalition’s efforts to raise more private funding in support of this important work. 

Thanks to Cisco’s foundational gift, a subsequent $50 million contribution from Apple, and the support of dozens of other private sector funders, Destination: Home alone has raised and deployed roughly $300 million in flexible, private funding in support of many key strategies of the Community Plan to End Homelessness, including the production of more deeply affordable housing.

In addition to financial contributions, private sector partners have also used their power and networks to connect the coalition to other major donors. Some companies have even provided in-kind contributions, including professional development training, a corporate communications platform, and government relations support. This philanthropic power and resource sharing has helped catapult the coalition’s ability to reshape the affordable housing ecosystem in Santa Clara County.

2020 Measure E Transfer Tax

As the largest city in the county, the City of San Jose realized it would need more resources to carry forward efforts to address homelessness as well. The statewide dissolution of redevelopment agencies in 2012 had eliminated one of the only robust sources of affordable housing available to the City of San Jose, and ongoing budget challenges left little available in the General Fund to build more critically-needed deeply affordable housing.

So, in late 2019, the San Jose City Council voted to place a measure on the ballot to increase the city’s transfer tax on real estate transactions over $2 million. While the measure (which would be designated Measure E) was placed on the ballot as a general tax, the City Council concurrently adopted a spending plan allocating the vast majority of funding to new affordable housing production. This plan also prioritized the needs of San Jose’s most in need residents, with more than half of the funding dedicated to either extremely low income / permanent supportive housing development or homelessness prevention programs.

Mayor Sam Liccardo and SV@Home brought together a wide array of partners (including many in this coalition) to mount a robust campaign in support of Measure E – which ultimately was passed by San Jose voters in March 2020, providing another key source of funding to support the community’s efforts to end homelessness. In fact, since its adoption, the Measure E transfer tax has generated approximately $50 million annually and served as a critical source of funding to expand affordable housing production (see page XX), homelessness prevention (see page XX) and other key programs and services for addressing homelessness

Key Initiatives Launched During This Period

As these key sources of funding were secured, the coalition was able to launch several key strategies between 2015 and 2020 – all of which continue to this day and have served as the foundation for the community-wide effort to end homelessness

Ramping Up the Production of Deeply Affordable Housing

Ramping Up the Production of Deeply Affordable Housing

After the adoption of the Measure A housing bond in 2016 (see page XX), the coalition undertook a concerted strategy to ramp up production and development of deeply affordable housing in Santa Clara County – and particularly extremely low income and supportive housing units. The voters’ stamp of approval was not enough; to scale up housing supply also required aligning members throughout the coalition around this shared goal while securing additional sources of funding.

64 Developments with 7,000 Affordable Units
County of Santa Clara
County of Santa Clara
  • The County’s 2016 Affordable Housing Bond has provided $950M in dedicated funding for ELI, VLI and Supportive Housing
  • The County also provides ~$20M in ongoing funding for supportive housing
City Gov’t & Other Public Entities
City Gov’t & Other Public Entities
  • 10 cities/public entities have provided land and funds towards deepply affordable housing development.
  • In particular, the City of San Jose has allocated ~ $ 300M, with 45% of these funds dedicated to ELI or PSH Units.
Non-Profit Service Providers
Non-Profit Service Providers

6 non-profit service poviders are helping provide on-site, wraparound services and case management at new deeply affordable housing developments.

Affordable Housing Developers
Affordable Housing Developers

15 affordable housing developers are helping construct and coordinate all activites at new deeply affordable housing developments.

Private Sector Partnerships
Private Sector Partnerships

Destination:Home has partnered with a nuimber of private sector partners – including Apple and Cisco – to porvide $70M in private funcing to fill funding gaps and respond to other unmet needs in the ecosystem.

The Housing Authority has allovcated more than 3,000 Project Based Vouchers to provide dedicated operating revenue for new deeply affordable developments.

Aligning the Leaders of the Coalition

As key leaders of the coalition, the City of San Jose and Santa Clara County Housing Authority quickly stepped up and agreed to allocate significant funding to support deeply affordable housing development in alignment with the goals of Measure A. Since 2020, the City of San Jose has invested over $300 million in affordable housing production, with 45% of that going to extremely low income and supportive housing, and has identified several properties to be developed into affordable housing. Thze Housing Authority likewise set a 45% development target, and has also allocated approximately 3,000 of its housing vouchers for deeply affordable housing units, totaling nearly $75 million annually. 

Destination: Home also committed to leveraging a large chunk of the philanthropic funding it had raised to fill gaps and accelerate progress.

In addition, the County of Santa Clara has supplemented its Measure A funds with additional investments in deeply affordable housing production, allocating another $200 million in capital funding from other County sources and agreeing to fund ongoing services and operations at supportive housing sites (by 2023, this amounted to roughly $23 million annually). 

Seeking Buy-In from Other Key Partners

With the core leaders of the coalition aligned, they also worked collaborative to bring other key partners on board:

  • Other Cities & Public Entities: While Measure A established goals to develop deeply affordable housing units throughout Santa Clara County, the more than a dozen smaller cities outside of San Jose generally had less funding and/or staff capacity to meet those goals. So, the coalition launched an intentional effort to secure the buy-in of other city governments throughout the county and find ways to address their challenges. 


For example, the County of Santa Clara’s Office of Supportive Housing worked openly with jurisdictions to develop new partnerships, including a memorandum of understanding with the City of Mountain View to braid local city dollars with Measure A funding at specific development sites to meet housing production goals for formerly homeless and extremely low income households. In addition, Destination: Home provided monetary support for housing and planning staff to help four cities create new positions to help process the surge of residential development applications and plan for new deeply affordable and supportive housing opportunities. Over the course of many years, these partnerships with cities and other local public entities (such as the Valley Transit Authority) helped secure the additional funding and land necessary to support new housing developments. 

  • Housing Developers: Historically, questions of financial feasibility and available funding sources also limited the production of affordable housing, so the lead partners of the coalition also convened local affordable housing developers and lenders to bring them on board. For some, this was a relatively easy sell because it aligned closely with their missions. But some developers had deeper reservations, and had to be convinced that the housing bond and other public sector support would make these projects economically viable. Coalition partners worked on capacity building and education of these stakeholders to equip them to understand, support, and ultimately develop deeply affordable and supportive housing projects. For example, Destination: Home deployed some of its flexible private funding to: provide early financing to help nonprofit developers secure and prepare sites (before government funding is available); offer grants to help non-profit developers increase capacity to take on more projects. Today, more than a dozen different housing developers are helping build new deeply affordable housing developments.
  • Private Funding Sources: While they were already leveraging resources from Cisco and Apple, the coalition also knew it could have a greater impact if they could secure more support from private affordable housing funders. So, Destination: Home also launched an effort to align more private resources behind the drive to build more deeply affordable housing. Most notably, in 2020, Destination: Home partnered with Meta and the Local Initiative Support Corporation (LISC) to launch Community Housing Fund — California’s largest private fund dedicated to creating housing for extremely low-income families —  securing another $150 million to support deeply affordable housing production through the Bay Area.
  • Community Support: Finally, the coalition knew that it would have to rally the broader community to support affordable housing development and overcome neighborhood opposition to new development proposals. Destination: Home and other housing advocates have organized individuals and community groups to advocate for housing production and speak up in support of new developments across the county. These advocates educate their neighbors, write to elected representatives, and comment at public meetings. Their work has helped engage more than 4,000 residents in a broad, ongoing campaign to support new deeply affordable housing developments.

This work to coalesce a broader group of partners has been transformative. As a result of this collective effort, more than a dozen new developments have already opened, providing a safe and affordable home to more than 2,000 low-income residents. And all together, this partnership has catalyzed 64 housing developments representing more than 7,000 affordable homes —with many more in the pipeline.

Launching a New Homelessness Prevention System

From the start, the coalition’s primary focus was to produce more affordable housing and get more people into those homes. But over time, it became clear that these efforts needed to be complemented by efforts to prevent more families from being pushed into homelessness in the first place. And helping families stay in their existing homes costs much less – both financially and in terms of suffering – than assisting people once they are already pushed out of their homes. 

Bringing Partners Together into a Unified Approach

In Santa Clara County, homelessness prevention services had historically been modest and administered in a disconnected way, with various community organizations providing services in different localities. Most programs subsided on small pots of funding, which resulted in assistance being provided unevenly (often based on zip code rather than need), in very limited situations and typically on a one-time basis only. In addition, most programs did not track whether they were effective in preventing homelessness or further housing instability.

So, the coalition, led by Destination: Home, decided to create a unified, countywide Homelessness Prevention System that would provide temporary financial assistance, legal support, and case management to low-income households at imminent risk of becoming homeless. The primary goals for building this countywide system were: to focus on the most at risk residents, distribute funding more equitably, create shared metrics for success, provide flexible support not bound to a specific dollar amount or time frame to meet the unique needs of each family, and ensure that there was “no wrong door”—that individuals could go to any service provider in the county and get the help they needed. 

To create the new and improved system, partners convened service providers to listen to their concerns, needs, and challenges. At first, there was hesitancy about shifting from the historic, jurisdiction-based funding to a pooled approach where dollars could be deployed more flexibly based on need. However, coalition partners used these conversations to establish shared value statements for the new system, co-created implementation timelines with providers that built in trial periods to allow for acclimation to new approaches and created funding incentives that could pay for additional staff and operations capacity. Overall, this collaborative approach generated buy-in for the new system, which was buoyed by new funding from more than a dozen different government, corporate, and philanthropic partners – including early seed funding from the County of Santa Clara and City of San Jose, who over time, have become the largest funders of the system.

Santa Clara County Homelessness Prevention System

In 2017, Destination: Home partnered with a network of non-profit providers – with Sacred Heart Community Service as the lead – to launch the Santa Clara County Homelessness Prevention System. Providers conduct a standardized screening process to analyze a household’s risk for homelessness and assign a case manager who can help the household access public benefits, legal support, temporary financial assistance, and other support services from across the system. Providers also offer temporary financial assistance to help households stabilize their financial situation and stay housed – and importantly, there are no hard caps on the amount of financial assistance that can be offered.
Originally conceived as a 2-year pilot program, the Santa Clara County Homelessness Prevention System has since grown to include a diverse group of 19 non-profits and now serves close to 2,000 families every year. The system also played a major role in the community’s successful pandemic-era rental and financial assistance effort (see page XX)

The Homelessness Prevention System has proven highly successful. Nearly 20,000 people at risk of homelessness have received support, with 95% of families remaining stably housed while receiving services. The program has also proven cost-effective as well, with the average household only requiring about $6,000 in direct financial assistance.

These outcomes have been confirmed by independent research as well. Results from a recent randomized controlled trial (the first ever conducted on a homelessness prevention program) carried out by the Wilson Sheehan Lab for Economic Opportunities at Notre Dame University revealed that individuals and families who received assistance through the system experienced an 81% reduction in the likelihood of experiencing homelessness within six months of enrolling and a 73% reduction within a year of enrolling. The study also suggests benefits to the broader community exceed the costs of the program, with $2.47 in benefits gained for every dollar spent on emergency financial assistance. 

As a result of these impressive results, and the efforts to create a unified community-wise approach, homelessness prevention has become enshrined as a key part of the community’s strategy for addressing homelessness.

Centering Lived Experience

Too often, people with lived experience of homelessness are treated only as beneficiaries, rather than key constituents of, and advisors to, the system of care. As the model in Santa Clara County evolved, it was abundantly clear that voices of lived experience should be front and center. And as the coalition has taken intentional steps to center lived experience in its work, a growing number of people have become directly involved in, and informing, major aspects of the community’s homelessness response.

The Lived Experience Advisory Board of Silicon Valley

In 2018, Destination: Home helped facilitate the creation of the Lived Experience Advisory Board of Silicon Valley (LEABsv), led by members with current or past experience of homelessness. This self-governing board serves as a platform for people who have experienced homelessness to provide meaningful input into the policy and program decisions related to the community’s homelessness response and system of care. In this role, members of LEABsv often raise pointed questions and share in the decision-making — for example: Who will be running a new program? What’s their reputation among people experiencing homelessness? How will they liaise between this community and the police? How will lived experience be integrated into this project or the services provided? These perspectives help the coalition craft strategies and programs that truly meet the diverse needs of homeless and at-risk residents.

Importantly, LEABsv was created by people with lived experience and is completely self-governing. LEABsv acts as a two-way conduit between people with lived experience and the Continuum of Care, passing on information about where funding is going and advising partners in real time about what should be prioritized. As part of this engagement, the Continuum of Care now includes several people with lived experience on its Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) review panel, which has led to meaningful changes to how funding is deployed in this community. For example, the scoring criteria used to evaluate responses has been changed to focus on outcomes, and as a result shelter utilization and housing stability have improved.

“We can’t be tokenized in this process….You can be there as an ally, but
people with lived experience need to lead it from Step A to Step Z.”

—Dontae Lartigue, Member, LEABsv and Destination: Home Board of Directors

Over time, LEABsv has developed partnerships with several other key stakeholders as well. For example, many non-profit service providers have consulted with LEABsv to improve their operations. In 2019, HomeFirst, a leading provider of services, shelter, and housing opportunities to the homeless and those at risk of homelessness in the Bay Area,  asked for help improving their intake process at shelters. LEABsv conducted focus groups and a survey of shelter users, and even sent two members as “secret shoppers” to see the service experience firsthand. The board then made formal recommendations to the service provider and created a feedback loop with executive leadership for monitoring progress.

As it has evolved, LEABsv has also developed its own strategic plan, decision-making processes, and budget—which serve not only to formalize its efforts, but also provide leadership and professional development opportunities to its members.

Key Steps to Establishing a Lived Experience Board

In the years since it was established, LEABsv has grown in size and reputation and communities outside of Silicon Valley have contacted LEABsv for advice on how to set up their own lived experience advisory boards. Some of the most important elements for success are: 

  • Ensuring the board remains autonomous and in charge of its own decision making; 
  • Keeping open lines of communication between the board and partners, even if it’s a disagreement; and 
  • Compensating participants with lived experience for their time spent engaging with the board. 

You can find more best practice resources at: https://leabsv.org/resources/

The Youth Action Board

In 2021, three young adults with lived experience formed the Youth Action Board (YAB), with an initial goal of securing and implementing a $10.4 million dollar grant for unhoused youth and young adults in Santa Clara County. They immediately formed a partnership with the Santa Clara Continuum of Care (CoC) who integrated YAB in all phases of the grant program: from choosing the type of program, developing the Request For Proposals (RFP) criteria, recruiting YYA for the RFP panel, allocating funds, and creating partnerships with grantees to support them in their continuous quality improvement. Throughout the process, YAB was thrilled to use their lived expertise to mold the program, giving a new and fresh approach to program design and making it more effective for youth and young adults being served. With input from the YAB, the CoC also provided training, one-on-one support and technical assistance, which was vital to member engagement and leadership development for the YAB, as well as stipends (whose amounts were decided by YAB) to compensate for the contributions and time of participating members. 

In the years that followed, the City of San Jose, the County of Santa Clara, County Executive Office, San Jose Conservation Corps, and the Youth Liberation Movement would also approach the YAB with similar requests to partner and lead various initiatives, programs, and pilots. Throughout these partnerships, YAB’s priority to center relationship-building has helped facilitate power-sharing through trust, transparency, collaboration, and open lines of communication. 

Over time, YAB has grown to 18 members and has had a 100% member retention rate since January 2023. Like LEABsv, the YAB is proud to ensure their board remains autonomous and in charge of its own decision making when it comes to partnering and their relationship with the CoC.

How Coalition Members Have Leaned Into Lived Experience

As LEABsv and YAB have grown in stature and impact, many other coalition partners have taken steps to more closely integrate lived experience into their work as well. Several government entities—including the County’s Continuum of Care (CoC) Governance Board and the City of San Jose’s Housing Commission—have added seats specifically reserved for people with lived experience. Destination: Home has recruited individuals with lived experience onto its staff, Board of Directors, and grantmaking review panels to ensure that people who know the problem firsthand are helping to design the solutions. And many non-profit partners – like Abode – have brought people with lived experience into their leadership.

With formal roles on these boards and commissions, individuals with lived experience are now evaluating the system of care, dictating funding, advocating for policy changes, and helping make decisions for how the system can be improved. 

And many members of our coalition have begun engaging people with lived experience even more deeply. For example:

  • The City of San Jose consulted closely with a group of people with lived experience in the development of the Guadalupe Emergency Interim Housing site. Over the course of a few years, people with lived experience shaped key elements of the project, affecting the design, the ongoing operations, and very importantly, the human-centered service that are offered on site. These deliberations formed the foundation of a policy and procedures manual for interim housing that is now used throughout the community.
  • The County of Santa Clara has centered the experiences of people with lived experience in redesigning its Coordinated Entry System. The involvement of LEABsv and other people with lived experience throughout the redesign process helped identify that the current intake assessments were lacking in cultural awareness and kept respondents from being honest about their needs – key findings that have informed the County’s efforts to create a more equitable tool.

6 decision-making bodies added seats for people with lived experience

~$250M in publicly-funded homelessness contracts vetted by people with lived experience

An Evolving Crisis

Despite significant progress in housing people and getting more affordable units built, a census found 9,706 county residents were homeless on a given night in 2019—an increase from the ~7,000 seen at the beginning of this work in 2007. More than 80% of these individuals were unsheltered. 

What explains this increase? First, income inequality was rising across the region. Between 2000 and 2015, workers in Santa Clara County with earnings in the 10th percentile saw their incomes decline by 12% while workers in the 90th percentile saw incomes rise by the same amount. This widening gap makes affordable housing even more out of reach for those living paycheck to paycheck. 

At the same time, housing costs increased. An analysis by the National Low-Income Housing Coalition found that, in 2018, there were only 34 affordable units available for every 100 extremely low-income households in San Jose. 

As a result of these strong macroeconomic forces, more people were being pushed into homelessness than ever before. In fact, over this five-year period, for every homeless individual connected to housing, two to three new people experienced homelessness for the very first time.  So, despite the coalition’s success connecting 14,000 people to permanent housing, homelessness continued to grow. 

This trend also made the region’s homelessness crisis much more visible to residents throughout the county. With the growing visibility of encampments, people living in vehicles, and unsheltered individuals struggling with substance abuse or mental health challenges, the crisis was becoming front-and-center in the public consciousness – creating both new challenges and opportunities for the coalition.