Project Summary
More than 150,000 people in California experience homelessness every day. In the last decade, homeless counts have risen in many metropolitan areas, despite efforts by and funding from local governments and nonprofits to address the issue. The limited capacity of shelters and social service agencies to meet the needs of a rapidly growing homeless population has forced many individuals experiencing homelessness to look for shelter in various public spaces. Without other options, many turn to public transit settings including freeway rights-of-way, underpasses, rest areas, parking lots, maintenance facilities, state highways, and even local urban streets and sidewalks under the auspices of the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans). With affordable housing scarce in California and the scale of the homelessness crisis often surpassing the capacities of existing social safety nets, Caltrans is facing these pressing issues and must consider solutions from outside the realm of public transportation to address them, including partnering with outside agencies and not-for-profits. The COVID-19 pandemic has only exacerbated these problems. Fear of infection in shelters and reduced capacity due to physical distancing requirements are driving more unhoused people onto the streets and into transportation settings. This white paper will assess the state of homelessness in Caltrans environments, and best practices for responding to homelessness in transportation settings. The research team will also evaluate how the pandemic and ongoing recovery efforts have affected these issues. To do this, the white paper will involve two major elements. The first will be a practitioner-oriented critical synthesis of existing academic and professional literature drawn from analyses of homelessness in such environments across the U.S. and worldwide to identify, describe, and compare best practices. The second element will consist of interviews with Caltrans staff and staff from at least two or three other departments of transportation, social service providers, law enforcement agencies, or other partners. The interviews will be chosen based on the identified best practices and will focus on responses and external partnerships that are the most effective but also humane. This project will incorporate consideration for different types and severities of homelessness, the varied populations who experience it, and the different physical and built environments across the state that Caltrans manages.
