Study finds rising homelessness on Virginia Peninsula, urges regional system changes

VM Advising consultants presented findings from a 2024 Virginia Peninsula homelessness study to the Newport News City Council on May 13, saying homelessness on the Peninsula is increasing and that Newport News and Hampton shoulder the largest shares of people experiencing homelessness.

The consultants told council the study — commissioned by the city and conducted with regional partners including the City of Hampton, York County, the City of Williamsburg, James City County and the Greater Virginia Peninsula Homelessness Consortium — analyzed root causes, assessed existing services and modeled system needs to inform recommendations for a coordinated regional response.

The study projects a 15% increase in calls to crisis hotlines from households considered "literally homeless" under the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) definition and estimates that more than 2,000 people experience homelessness in a given year across the Peninsula. The report also found one in five people experiencing homelessness has severe mental illness or chronic substance use disorder, rising rates of first-time homelessness and increasing homelessness among higher-income brackets, which the presenters linked to large rental and home-value inflation since 2019.

Consultants said zoning and housing supply contribute: their zoning analysis found limited multifamily housing zones across the region but noted Newport News contains the largest share of multifamily zoned land among Peninsula localities. They recommended altering local zoning to permit higher density and reduce single-family-only zones as part of long-term housing solutions.

Study authors described a seven-part recommendation package: (1) create a system transformation plan to guide structural changes; (2) strengthen a regional homeless response and commit housing resources to a coordinated entry system; (3) expand access to housing for people with barriers; (4) build a regional financial strategy to align funding across jurisdictions; (5) eliminate service barriers and adopt written standards and policies for client-centered care; (6) develop an unsheltered response and regional outreach strategy to reduce punitive responses; and (7) pursue long-term housing solutions including zoning changes.

On service capacity, consultants said system modeling produced projections of needed beds for rapid rehousing and permanent supportive housing (PSH) and recommended delaying investments in emergency health-care capacity until the rapid rehousing and PSH system goals in the model are met. Presenters told council they used a mix of quantitative sources — census data, Homeless Management Information System (HMIS) records, point-in-time (PIT) counts — and qualitative inputs from interviews, focus groups and public forums across the Peninsula.

Council members thanked the presenters and asked for clarifications. One councilmember asked whether the study could determine if people experiencing homelessness originated in Newport News or had migrated from other localities to access services such as Fort Oaks; consultants said the datasets used did not provide reliable, jurisdiction-level tracking for that question and that system performance measures were not broken out by locality in the way needed for a statistical conclusion. The presenters advised referring the detailed origin question to the regional planning council, which provided PIT count data used in the study.

Council comments emphasized using the study to inform the city’s separate housing study and suggested the region adopt a shared, long-term approach to make people who become unhoused more likely to regain housing stability. Presenters said they held two public forums, four geographically spread focus groups (including groups of frontline staff and people with lived experience), a system-modeling technical team and a community survey to support findings.

The presentation closed with the consultants offering to be available for follow-up questions and to provide technical detail in the fuller report already submitted to council. No formal council action was taken at the meeting on the study; councilmembers discussed next steps and how to integrate the report into planning and budget work going forward.