Where Housing Meets Advocacy

The Need:

For highly acute individuals, stable housing requires more than a unit — it requires ongoing care, coordination, and community.

Seniors are Struggling

Across California, adults in their 50s and 60s are the fastest-growing group seeking homelessness services, and many experience homelessness for the first time later in life following health or income disruptions.

medical issues are connected to homelessness

People experiencing homelessness are increasingly entering housing with high medical, mental health, and functional needs, including PTSD and chronic illness.

Isolation is a silent killer

Isolation and limited informal support (living alone, loss of a partner, fewer caregivers) can make it harder to stay stable in housing without added connection and care coordination.

veterans need complex care

Insurance isn’t enough. Barriers such as limited transportation, complex systems, and physical immobility often leave people relying on emergency care instead of preventive services.

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Our Housing Model

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Veteran homelessness doesn’t end when someone receives keys. It ends when housing is paired with consistent, relational support that helps people stay healthy, access income, and strengthen their connections to more resources.

In 2023, in partnership with CalVet, we launched a statewide housing pilot that increased services within veteran-specific permanent supportive housing – aiming to address the needs of the growing populations of at-risk and aging veterans in California.

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Our Housing Model

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The pilot at a glance

This pilot exists because veterans and service providers advocated for a better model to meet unmet and emerging needs - and because the state invested in proving what works. The second-year findings of the pilot, conducted by RAND Corporation, show the pilot’s success and provide a blueprint for advocacy.

The Lay of the Land

$20 million in competitive grants were awarded to 4 veteran services organizations across California: Swords to Plowshares (San Francisco), Nation’s Finest (Sonoma and Sacramento), PATH (San Diego), and U.S. VETS (Los Angeles, Riverside, Inglewood, and Long Beach).

Current Numbers

By 2025, 515 veterans were enrolled in the pilot to receive its comprehensive services. Services include: transportation to health appointments and grocery shopping, in-unit habitability assistance, onsite mental health and peer specialists, increase in social activities.

Building Sustainable Teams

The pilot also aims to decrease staff burnout by hiring more professionals.

Our Impact

515 veterans enrolled statewide and 250 completing at least one full year of participation.

Housing Stability

98% of participants remained housed.

Only 2% experienced negative exits (eviction, incarceration, return to homelessness).

Zero preventable negative exits in the six months prior to May 2025.

Health and Safety

Falls declined by 63%.

Emergency room visits and ambulance/911 calls dropped by nearly 60%.

The proportion of veterans with no acute health events increased by 30%.

Missed medical appointments dropped by 63%.

The share of veterans eating three meals per day doubled (from 34% to 68%).

Alcohol use declined by 24%.

Daily Function and Independence

Unmet companionship needs declined by 89%.

Unmet medical support declined by 80%.

Veterans who participated in three or more group programs were:

Three times more likely to report good or very good health.

62% less likely to use emergency medical care.

53% less likely to report habitability complaints.

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Veteran Stories

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Behind the data are people whose lives became more livable.

This pilot shows that permanent supportive housing can be preventive, cost-reducing, and scalable - for veterans, and for seniors, people exiting chronic homelessness, youth transitioning from crisis systems, and more populations.

“This staff, they’ve helped me through a lot of things. I can call them right now and they would be at my front door with no problem. And with any, anything, anything I request, they would have it for me. Any problem I have, they would help me solve it. And if they can't help me, they'll find somebody that can. They go above and beyond to call a dude to help.”

Larry R.

Veteran

“I don't know what I'd do … food prep, right now I just don't have the energy to do my own, so I'd be stuck getting whatever I could from the grocery store, you know. I wouldn't have any options, really.”

Lawrence P.