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County reports outreach, shelter and behavioral-health figures in semiannual homelessness update
Summary
County staff told supervisors outreach teams provided more than 25,000 services to 810 people in the unincorporated county during the second half of 2024; shelters enrolled 1,358 people in the same reporting period and system-wide exits to permanent housing and length-of-stay trends were discussed.
Sacramento County officials on March 25 presented their semiannual update on county-led homelessness efforts, reporting outreach and shelter performance figures and flagging capacity and demographic trends officials said will affect near-term responses.
Emily Halken, director of the Department of Homeless Services and Housing, told supervisors the county-funded outreach teams enrolled 810 unduplicated individuals during the last six months of 2024 and provided more than 25,000 individual services during that period. "These teams were able to support 184 people during those 6 months to move out of unsheltered homelessness," Halken said, adding that 67 of those moves were directly into permanent housing.
The presentation summarized performance at county-funded shelters for July through December 2024. Key figures reported by staff: - Distinct shelter participants: 1,358 individuals (about 1,100 households) were served by the county-funded shelter programs in that period. - Utilization: the county's shelter capacity reported in the packet averaged about 90% utilization over the reporting months. - Exits and length of stay: staff reported 52% of exits were categorized as "positive" (not returning to the street) and about 32% of exits were into permanent housing. Average length of stay across county-funded shelters was reported as 167 days. - Aging population: staff flagged that 30% of shelter guests in the period were age 55 or older, and that the county is assessing shelter readiness to address an aging unhoused population.
Behavioral-health engagement: Sherry Green, division manager for Behavioral Health Services, said county behavioral-health teams made contact with 1,360 unhoused residents who were referred for services and reported nearly 70% of those referrals resulted in a successful linkage to behavioral-health services. Green described the HEART teams (Homeless Engagement and Response Team) as a separate, encampment-focused effort: HEART made 1,603 contacts during the reporting window, of which 342 people accepted referrals and 171 of those actually attended appointments.
Staff and board members also discussed system-wide capacity and barriers to exits, including the scarcity of affordable housing (especially for very-low-income households), infrastructure constraints on infill and greenfield projects, and the time it takes to move master-plan areas from entitlement to finished lots.
Public comment: Mike Jasky, representing Sacramento Area Congregations Together, told the board the county remains behind in producing extremely-low and very-low income housing and urged the board to allocate more staff and resources to accelerate affordable housing production.
Board response: supervisors and department staff acknowledged the scale of the challenge and described a range of ongoing work to improve accessibility of shelters, increase outreach, expand behavioral-health partnerships and pursue housing production. Staff said they will continue to coordinate with the city of Sacramento and regional partners and will return with additional system-level proposals and data.
Action: the homelessness update was presented as an informational report; staff did not request a board vote on new county policy in this item.
