Project Summary
This research will investigate how the COVID-19 pandemic and its associated economic effects have impacted the homelessness crisis in transit environments in the state’s major metropolitan areas, starting with Los Angeles and San Francisco. A statewide web survey of California transit operators, departments of transportation, government agencies, and service providers on how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected their strategies to deal with homelessness will be conducted. The survey will ask staff and stakeholders how each of these organizations address homelessness; what the scale of their homelessness issues are and the challenges they face; how the pandemic has changed those strategies or the scale of the problem; and how it has affected their effectiveness. The survey will also be sent to a selected set of transit operators and agencies in other states to see whether California transit homelessness policies are more or less effective than elsewhere and whether the scale and type of challenges encountered here are unique or shared across the nation. An interim analysis of survey findings will be produced as quickly as is practicable after the completion of the survey which will evaluate strategies that transit operators and their partners are implementing. An actionable set of best-practice solutions for how transit operators and departments of transportation can address homelessness during this pandemic or future disruptions will be developed based on the study results. A final report, as well as a policy brief, will be prepared to give transit operators and their partners information that will better help them respond to the immediate and pressing issues of homelessness during the pandemic and allow them to play their role more broadly in alleviating the state’s severe homelessness crisis.
