Silicon Valley’s Destination: Home is expanding a homelessness prevention model that its leadership says is designed to intervene before eviction turns into homelessness. The nonprofit said it is partnering with 10 organizations across the country to deliver rental assistance and case management, along with supportive services for people facing eviction, with a goal of helping more than 10,000 families remain stably housed.
The program traces back to Santa Clara County, where Destination: Home said it launched its prevention work in 2017 after observing more people falling into homelessness. The nonprofit said it provided rental assistance, case management and supportive services to hundreds of families on the brink of eviction and received support from private funders to make the work possible.
Destination: Home said Santa Clara County adopted the program into its homelessness strategy in 2024 and scaled it countywide. The nonprofit said that since 2017, the effort has helped nearly 44,000 people in the county avoid living on the streets.
Ray Bramson, Destination: Home’s chief operating officer and a San José Spotlight columnist, said the program is designed as something local leaders can replicate at larger scale. “We’ve used the model successfully locally here, but I think it’s a model we can advocate and push for at a larger scale,” Bramson told San José Spotlight, according to the article distributed by The Associated Press.
A randomized control trial cited by Destination: Home found that people who received the assistance were likely to remain housed two years later, based on data the University of Notre Dame’s Wilson Sheehan Lab for Economic Opportunities collected. David Phillips, the director of research with the lab, said the approach is meant to address affordability pressures before eviction triggers broader harm. “We know there are a very large number of families where affordability is an issue. When folks become evicted, there are a lot of negative effects. The big piece of the goal is to get ahead of the problem,” Phillips told San José Spotlight, the article said.
Destination: Home said it is now launching a “Right at Home” initiative to argue that federal funding should be set aside for prevention as well as response. The nonprofit said it has raised $77 million so far and planned to train organizations in the 10 participating cities to adopt its homelessness prevention model, according to the AP-distributed report.
As part of that initiative, Destination: Home said at least $5 million would be given to each community to serve 1,500 households over five years, and that the Wilson Sheehan Lab for Economic Opportunities would collect data. The article said the initiative is funded by Cisco, Sobrato Philanthropies, the Valhalla Foundation and The Audacious Project.
The report also included accounts from people who received assistance through the Santa Clara County model. Desiré Campusano said rental assistance multiple times helped her stay afloat through major life transitions, including when she was between jobs and when her rent rose from $1,500 to $2,400 over three years. “It helped me to even be able to move in, because I didn’t have any savings whatsoever,” Campusano told San José Spotlight, adding that a case manager followed up and checked in.
Keanna Ward, who the article said was formerly homeless, said she viewed the program as essential for creating a safety net for people living paycheck to paycheck as instability spreads. Ward told San José Spotlight that services like these are needed because of a rise in unemployment, “especially amongst women,” according to the report.
A spokesperson for the Sobrato Organization said in the report that housing is essential for economic mobility and community belonging and that the forces behind housing instability are national in scope. “While our work is deeply rooted in Silicon Valley, the forces driving housing instability are national in scope,” the spokesperson told San José Spotlight. “If we are serious about strengthening communities and expanding economic mobility, we must be equally serious about ensuring that families across the country have access to stable housing.”