在流落街头之前：如何通过前端预防终结无家可归危机

About 20 years ago, I was working the front desk of the largest homeless shelter in Silicon Valley. And that's when Tanya walked in. She looked exhausted, the kind of weary that comes from having no place to go and no idea what to do. She was clutching a satchel tightly to her chest like it was all she had left. And then all of a sudden, the satchel started to cry. Inside was her newborn baby.

She shared that she had been assaulted, which led to her pregnancy. Prior to that, she’d been working a minimum-wage job and renting a room in San Jose. But when complications from her pregnancy arose, she had to stop working. So she lost her job and then her home. So when she was discharged from the hospital, she had no place to go, no home to go back to, no savings, no family to call. She was discharged from the hospital with a list of shelters and a bus token.

So Tanya did what too many people in our community do when they're in crisis. She rode Hotel 22, our only 24-hour bus line that doubles as a moving homeless shelter for those with nowhere else to go. And she rode that bus for two days with her baby in her arms. Tanya's story is heartbreaking, but what's worse is it's not rare. It's not exceptional. This kind of thing happens in America every single day.

In 2024, homelessness in America reached the highest levels ever recorded. There were over 771,000 people without homes in our country, and that was an 18 percent increase in just one year. And for every one person on the streets, there are thousands more on the edge, living paycheck to paycheck, one unexpected bill or crisis away from losing it all. We've been conditioned to believe that homelessness isn't solvable, that it's too complex, that it's too expensive. But the truth is, it's a lot easier to solve than you may think. Prevention is the key to having less people on our streets over time. (Applause)

In almost every other area of public policy, we understand the value of prevention. We screen for cancer early because it saves lives and money. We reinforce bridges before the hurricanes hit. And every single day, every single one of us puts our seat belts on when we get in the car, just in case we're in an accident. But when it comes to housing insecurity, we like to do the opposite. We prefer to wait until the crisis has already happened. But just like diseases and natural disasters have warning signs, homelessness does too: a missed job, a death in the family, a medical emergency -- just to name a few. And because these patterns are predictable, it means we can and must intervene sooner. Because homelessness doesn't have to be inevitable. And if we continue to act like it is, we will never solve it.

In 2017, in Silicon Valley, one of the highest-cost-of-living regions in the world, my organization, Destination: Home, alongside a core set of partners, launched a homelessness prevention system. Since that time, we've helped over 44,000 people remain in their homes. (Cheers and Applause) Not with complicated programs and endless steps, but with fast, targeted, flexible support -- right when it's needed the most. You see, we stopped waiting for someone to show up at a shelter, and we created a new option, a system to pull people back from the brink.

Let me explain how it works. Take Rose, a single mom who, due to an unexpected layoff, has been unable to pay her rent. So now she owes back rent, and she’s facing eviction. So we meet with her and we complete a vulnerability assessment. We're not just looking at her finances. We're looking at any other conditions that are contributing to her housing insecurity. And through this assessment, we learn that Rose is at severe risk of homelessness, but also likely to be able to stay housed with just a little bit of support.

So then we act fast: getting Rose what she needs in as short of a time frame as possible. In her case, that meant paying off her back rent, working with her landlord and helping her avoid the eviction. And with that little bit of help, Rose and her son were able to stay stably housed. And she's not alone in figuring this out. She gets a caseworker, someone who sticks with her, helping her navigate her new job, her new benefits, her new childcare. We're not just a check. We're a partner in rebuilding. (Applause)

And this isn't just anecdotal. It's been rigorously evaluated. The University of Notre Dame's research is clear. Not only is our approach statistically significant at keeping people housed in both the short and longer term, but for every dollar we invested in prevention, we saved the public $2.47. (Applause)

But the most important number? One. One mom, one child, one family who didn't have to fall through the cracks. And that's what this is really about. Not abstract statistics, but real people with real lives and real futures. Through this work, families will remain in their homes. Their children will be able to remain in school, and public costs drop dramatically because shelter stays, emergency-room visits and arresting people simply for being poor are far more expensive. (Applause)

My family has been running a homeless shelter out of a church since I was a child. That means I have witnessed a lot of suffering, and I have done this work professionally ever since, in every type of setting you can imagine -- shelters, streets, camps, housing programs. And prevention has always been the missing piece. So that's why, with generous support from the Audacious community, we've launched Right at Home, a national movement to stop homelessness before it starts. (Applause)

We're doing this because we believe in the value of creating a system that actually works for people before they are in the worst moments of their lives. So now we're replicating our model across 10 diverse communities: rural, urban and tribal -- all across America -- to prove that preventing homelessness is possible everywhere.

Imagine if you didn't know where you were going to sleep tonight. How productive would you be able to be today, when in just a few hours, you know you'll be putting your children to sleep in the back of your car? How much work would you get done if you didn't know how your family was going to survive the night? The single most obvious answer to our homelessness crisis is to stop it from ever happening in the first place. (Applause) Together, we can stop homelessness before it starts. And together, we can keep people right at home. Thank you. (Applause and cheers)