City/County Plan to End Homelessness

The Environmental Community has been included in the conversation about ending homelessness in Santa Clara County. On July 30, homeless advocates, agencies, and environmental groups got together to discuss environmental impacts and considerations for a document called "Community Plan to End Homelessness in Santa Clara County." This high-level document brings many groups together to look at the problem of homelessness in the county and big goals to end homelessness by 2019. This effort is led by Destination: Home with input from over 50 partners. 

Representatives from Audbon, Friends of Coyote Creek Watershed, Sustainable Silicon Valley 3D and others discussed the impacts that the homeless have on our environment and how providing homes will lighten that burden.

From the meeting, one interesting document was the statistics related to homeless individuals in Santa Clara County. Here are a few numbers:

• 7, 631 homeless individuals (2013)
• 67% are male
• 87% lived in Santa Clara County before becoming homeless
• 74% are unemployed
• 42% sleep outdoors or in encampments

With these numbers, we can see how ending homelessness in Santa Clara County would help the environment as well as the people who experience this untenable situation everyday.