Annual Reports
View our Fiscal Year 2019 Annual Report, featuring a message from Executive Director Phil Kramer, a financial overview, quotes from your community, and information about our newest initiatives.
get informed
The first step to finding community solutions for homelessness is education. Learn about homelessness in Santa Cruz County, read success stories of clients we’ve served, and dive into some national resources on understanding homelessness. As is often the case, there’s more than meets the eye.
After 33 years of service as Homeless Services Center, now we are proud to serve this community with the name Housing Matters.
Housing is how we’ll resolve homelessness together. Housing is the focus of the conversations we have with our clients. Housing is the conversation we seek with you, with our civic leaders, and with the broader community. Housing matters to everyone in Santa Cruz County.
Whether you are a beloved supporter of this organization, or just learning about us for the first time, you may have a few questions. Please enjoy the Q&A about our name change >
From CalMatters: Gov. Gavin Newsom is right when he says: “Shelter solves sleep. Housing solves homelessness.”
Shelters are short-term responses, not the long-term solution to California’s homelessness crises. That’s why our policies and resources should focus on the right to housing, not a right to shelter.
Temporary shower facilities installed at Homeless Services Center in response to building deterioration
Nearly 200,000 showers have been provided to people experiencing homelessness since the Homeless Services Center facility opened in 2006
The temporary shower and restroom facilities will be open to the public from 10-2, seven days a week, effective Friday, August 16.
Data
Every two years, Santa Cruz County, along with communities across the country, conducts a survey to estimate the number of individuals and families who are experiencing homelessness. See this year’s results >
Newsletters
Local Media, Strategies and Solutions
From Santa Cruz Sentinel: Qualifying as one of Santa Cruz County’s most vulnerable people experiencing “chronic homelessness,” Tony Canepa ranks as one of more than 800 who have been connected to housing with support services locally since 2012.
Across Santa Cruz County, chronic homelessness is estimated to have dropped by nearly a third in the past two years, according to preliminary census results released last month. The housing of chronically homeless persons such as Canepa, 67, has been prioritized and tracked by a multi-agency initiative of service providers dubbed 180/2020. A banner with the latest count stretches across the sound barrier wall behind Homeless Services Center, facing Highway 1 traffic.
Data
The Homeless Action Partnership (HAP) released preliminary results from the 2019 Point In Time (PIT) Count, which is a single-day census of the homeless population conducted every two years.
The results indicate an overall decrease of homelessness in Santa Cruz County of 3.6%.
Local Media
“Housing Matters operates shelter as a pathway to housing; that is, working with all shelter program participants on individualized housing plans … shelter in and of itself is not the solution. Housing people, which we do every single day, is the solution to homelessness.”
From Santa Cruz Sentinel: Homeless Action Partnership has come up with a plan to provide homeless people year-round shelter and housing services.
The partnership is a collaboration of Santa Cruz County and each city within the county, along with local homelessness service providers.
Local Media, Op-Eds, Strategies and Solutions
Former Santa Cruz mayor Don Lane shares his take on how to best tackle the challenges of finding new sites for shelters, treatment centers, and social services centers, in his June 2 Op-Ed in the Santa Cruz Sentinel.