Small, less-expensive readymade homes could buy time as the state continues to struggle with homelessness and high building costs.

 By Mark Kreidler, Capital & Main

This story is produced by the award-winning journalism nonprofit Capital & Main and co-published here with permission.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s executive order to clear homeless encampments doesn’t carry much heft, since he can’t force cities or counties to follow the directive. The governor’s scope is limited to state land, while most homelessness is experienced in urban and suburban settings, the city of San Francisco and Los Angeles County prominent among them.

But Newsom’s edict could accomplish something of real significance, even if it’s not the creation he intended. By framing the conversation about homelessness in urgent terms, he may open the door to broader thinking about the problem — and especially to some approaches that seem to be hiding in plain sight.

An “end” to homelessness isn’t happening, in part because California is years if not decades behind in addressing its ever-growing need for permanent and affordable housing. But that’s not the only way to get at the problem.

Interim housing, also commonly called fast or temporary housing, is on the rise in the state, with innovative programs that include the rapid construction of tiny homes or modules at a fraction of the cost of permanent buildings or houses.

It’s not shelter space, not congregate housing. It is living space for individuals, relocating those who’ve been street sleeping. And while it won’t solve the problem of homelessness, because no single approach will, it rises to meet an immediate and crying need — and quickly.

“It certainly does a lot of things that make it a cost-benefit payoff in spades,” said Elizabeth Funk, founder and CEO of Dignity Moves, a Northern California nonprofit that has partnered with multiple cities and communities on such projects. “The cost of leaving someone on the street is twice what it is to get them indoors in treatment and perhaps returning to self-sufficiency. That seems very logical, and yet it has been contrary to policy.”

*   *   *

Policy, though, is changing. Senate Bill 1395, the Interim Housing Act, is heading toward final approval in the state Legislature, with a final Assembly vote upcoming and a supportive Newsom’s signature anticipated. Authored by Sen. Josh Becker (D-Menlo Park), the bill will extend for more than a decade a streamlined permitting process for these kinds of quick-housing projects — and stamp state approval on this approach to the homelessness crisis.

“Interim housing is the missing rung on the ladder to permanent housing,” Becker said earlier this year. “The Interim Housing Act takes a proven local housing strategy and makes it available statewide, giving local governments a new tool to address the homelessness and housing crises.”

Funk’s organization co-sponsored the legislation, which seeks no funding. Rather, it’s about clearing the path for organizations like Dignity Moves to partner with private donors and community officials to get small dwellings built fast.

The Dignity Moves approach is straightforward, which is not to say it’s simple. The nonprofit uses private money to construct prefabricated living modules, using the same building codes that FEMA uses to respond to natural disasters. That allows for above-ground utilities, smaller room sizes and no underground permanent foundations, among other things.

The units can be forklifted to one area and later moved to another, depending upon where available land sits. They are absolutely designed as temporary placements, with a housing community spending perhaps three to five years total in a single location. The communities are often built on land that isn’t currently in use — for example, parcels for which a private developer has a long-range plan but no current activity, or idle city real estate that is being held for later development.

Using this approach, the city of San Jose has built hundreds of units of temporary but individual housing, with plans to do more. Coupled with supportive services and other outreach programs, the goal is not only to get homeless people into housing, but put them on track to remain housed and thriving.

Last summer, San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan said the city’s unsheltered population had dropped by 10% since 2022. The state’s overall homeless count, meanwhile, rose by at least 6% in 2023.

*   *   *

There are good reasons why the focus in California — and in state policy — was for years set firmly in the direction of “solving” homelessness. Most federal funding is dedicated to permanent housing, so when cities and counties place people in shelters or temporary units, they have to provide funding for meals, case management, supportive services and the like.

Finding temporary shelter for someone also doesn’t officially lower the homeless count, which can be a problem for those who need to show such metrics in order to qualify for certain funding. And as San Jose’s process has demonstrated, there can be both neighborhood pushback against a tiny housing community for the previously unhoused, and a concern among some that any money spent on interim housing will come at the expense of permanent solutions.

That may sound fanciful in a state whose leaders project a need for 2.5 million more housing units over the next eight years, but it’s a mindset that needs to be respected. On the other hand, a Los Angeles Times report from June 2022 noted that a single affordable apartment unit in California cost more than $1 million to build in several projects, and experts place the average cost of an affordable unit statewide at $800,000.

For that money, Dignity Moves can build between 16 and 20 units of fast housing, based on Funk’s estimate of a $50,000 cost per unit. The nonprofit is already working with leaders in nearly a dozen cities or counties, including San Francisco, Santa Barbara County, Modesto and Thousand Oaks.

“The thing we’re doing is so inexpensive that we can bring private philanthropy to augment and grow the pie. I’m not going to get philanthropy to fund a million-dollar apartment,” said Funk. “We don’t have to think of this as a zero-sum game, and yet we get that pushback a lot.”

Between the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling on homeless encampments and Newsom’s executive order, communities are being empowered and encouraged to find solutions. Breaking up an encampment without giving the unhoused a place to go — or an option for a decent, safe space — is both inhumane and pointless, and California is nowhere near meeting its need for permanent housing solutions. While that fight goes on, it’s time to diversify the strategy.

Copyright 2024 Capital & Main