For many families, having a home isn’t just about having a safe place to sleep. A stable home provides stability, builds community, and sets them up for the future. But too often, families in our community are being pushed into homelessness faster than our systems are able to build and connect people to permanent housing. This is why it’s so important to prevent homelessness for families before it even begins.

In Santa Clara County, Destination: Home is part of a collaborative effort to build effective better solutions to end homelessness. After decades of research into what works in preventing and addressing homelessness, the nonprofit serves as a lead coordinator, partnering with government agencies, nonprofits, people with lived experience of homelessness, housing developers, and the private sector to design and implement effective strategies to prevent and end homelessness. 

Destination: Home rallied organizations working on issues related to homelessness including including financial assistance, legal support and case managers in Santa Clara County to set up a shared system, preventing homelessness for families before it starts. Now, when a resident applies for help at one agency, their information is entered into a centralized database accessible by other partner organizations. The goal is to ensure that no matter where someone first seeks help, they can be quickly routed to the services that fit their needs. The Santa Clara County Homelessness Prevention System, which is coordinated by the County in partnership with Destination: Home and Sacred Heart Community Service, identifies households at risk of homelessness and provides financial assistance, legal support, and case management services to help them remain in their homes.   

Since 2020, countywide prevention efforts, including the Homelessness Prevention System, have helped 33,000 people who are at imminent risk of homelessness. In 2024, Santa Clara County fully integrated the Homelessness Prevention System into its official public safety net. Two years after receiving assistance, more than 90% of the households supported by the model remained in their homes.

“There’s this narrative that addiction and mental health issues are driving the homelessness crisis, but we know pretty resolutely that it’s more of an economic issue,” said Ray Bramson, Chief Operating Officer at Destination: Home, regarding preventing homelessness for families. “It’s working families, adults with disabilities and senior citizens, so we’re trying to get out more human stories because there are a lot of folks who are unseen.”

Read the full article about preventing homelessness for families by Caroline Roffe at The David and Lucile Packard Foundation.