Research and Publications

Health Care Services in Alameda County: Homeless Individuals Describe Their Experiences 2023-2024

In the spring of 2023, two Alameda County Health programs- Health Care for the Homeless (ACHCH) and Public Health Community Assessment, Planning, and Evaluation (CAPE) leadership collaborated on a project to better understand health care access and services provided to People Experiencing Homelessness (PEH) in Alameda County. This report reflects the self-reported experiences of individuals with prior and current lived experience of homelessness across Alameda County.

Status of Primary Care Access for People Experiencing Homelessness in Alameda County October 2024

In 2023, Alameda County Health, Health Care for the Homeless (ACHCH) and Public Health Community Assessment, Planning, and Evaluation (CAPE) collaborated on a project to gain insight into the experiences of People Experiencing Homeless in accessing and receiving health care services in Alameda County. The findings, obtained through a series of focus group, conducted at homeless shelters, encampments and drop-in centers across the county, demonstrate the complex needs of an underserved population, who face multiple barriers accessing care, and often distrust a medical system that has caused and compounded traumatic harm.

Alameda County Homeless Mortality Report 2022

The Alameda County Homeless Mortality report seeks to accurately enumerate deaths among people experiencing homelessness to inform policies and practices to reduce preventable deaths, and to reduce the harm that preventable deaths create for families, friends, caregivers, and the community. Homeless Mortality reporting will help our health and housing partners develop interventions to reduce deaths among those experiencing homelessness.

Alameda County Point in Time Count 2024

Alameda County’s bi-annual point-in-time count of people experiencing homelessness.

Alameda County Homeless Mortality Report 2021

The Alameda County Homeless Mortality report seeks to accurately enumerate deaths among people experiencing homelessness to inform policies and practices to reduce preventable deaths, and to reduce the harm that preventable deaths create for families, friends, caregivers, and the community. Homeless Mortality reporting will help our health and housing partners develop interventions to reduce deaths among those experiencing homelessness.

Poster: Convening a Community of Care to Respond to the COVID-19 Crisis (2022)

Poster presented at the 2022 National Health Care for the Homeless Council conference detailing the importance of community coordination and highlighting ACHCH’s work in partnership with local government and community members in responding to COVID-19.

EveryOne Counts! Alameda County Point in Time Count 2022

EveryOne Counts! is Alameda County’s bi-annual point-in-time count of people experiencing homelessness. The most recent count took place in February 2022. Click here for detailed information.

Alameda County Homeless Mortality Report 2018-2020

The Alameda County Health Care for the Homeless (ACHCH) and Community Assessment, Planning, and Evaluation (CAPE) teams have released the County's first-ever Homeless Mortality Report, a retrospective report on homeless deaths from 2018 to 2020 in Alameda County.

A Mobile Buprenorphine Treatment Program for Homeless Patients with Opioid Use Disorder

Psychiatry Online published an article authored by Colin Buzza, M.D., M.P.H., Andrea Elser, B.A., and Jeffrey Seal, M.D. regarding opioid-related overdose deaths.

EveryOne Counts! Alameda County Point in Time Count 2019

EveryOne Counts! is Alameda County’s bi-annual point-in-time count of people experiencing homelessness. The most recent count took place in January 2019. Click here for information.

Alameda County Health Care for the Homeless Uses the StreetHealth Team to Treat SUD on the Street

In 2017, ACHCH developed the StreetHealth Team using HRSA funding. This multi-disciplinary team works out of a small mobile unit led by a psychiatrist and includes a substance use-credentialed nurse and outreach workers.

Alameda County Health Care for the Homeless Strategic Plan

2019-2021 strategic plan for ACHCH

County of Alameda Homelessness Solutions Action Plan 2018-2021

A three-year Homelessness Action Plan sets forth a plan for Alameda County to invest $340 million over the next three years toward addressing homelessness.

Housing Oakland's Unhoused: Community-based Solutions (2018)

Dellums Institute for Social Justice/Just Cities, The Village, and The East Oakland Collective worked with the UC Berkeley Goldman School of Public Policy in 2018 to form the Housing & Dignity Project to advance community solutions.

HOPE/Home Study

The HOPE/Home study follows a cohort of 350 older homeless adults in Oakland, California over three years, using clinical assessments and structured interviews to assess geriatric conditions (functional, cognitive, and sensory impairment), housing history, behavioral health (mental health and alcohol and illicit substance use), physical health (chronic diseases), and acute healthcare utilization (Emergency Department visits, inpatient hospitalizations, and skilled nursing facility placement). David Modersbach, ACHCH Grant Manager, serves on the Advisory Board for the HOPE/Home study.

Alameda County Homelessness Solutions Summit

On February 22, 2018, the Alameda County Homelessness Solutions Summit was held in San Leandro, CA. The summit was convened to bring together County and City officials, policy makers, advocates, and the people experiencing homelessness in Alameda County. They spent the day discussing solutions to homelessness and recognizing that we’re all in this together even though we have separate and distinct jurisdictional responsibilities. Watch video that was created for the summit. For more information, visit Alameda County Homelessness Solutions Summit.

Overview of Homelessness in Alameda County (2016)

This press kit, prepared in June 2016, provides statistics and anecdotes that describe the state of homelessness in Alameda County. The report also addresses causes of homelessness and the county's approach to reducing homelessness. Direct service programs are listed as well as policy and structural initiatives such as coordinated entry, prioritized access to permanent supportive housing, and a proposed housing bond ballot measure.

Hayward Homeless Assessment 2016

A community-wide assessment of homelessness conducted by the Hayward Task Force to End Hunger and Homelessness and Cal State East Bay.

2015 Health Care Needs Assessment of Persons Experiencing Homelessness in Alameda County

As a HRSA-funded Health Center, Alameda County Health Care for the Homeless (ACHCH) carries out a periodic Needs Assessment to help inform the program and determine the health care needs of persons experiencing homelessness. Our most recent Needs Assessment was carried out in 2015, updated in 2018, and is based on evaluation of a variety of utilization, survey and research data.

Homeless Health Care Reports and Resources:

National Health Care for the Homeless Council Clinical Practices: A wealth of resources from clinical guidelines, diseases and conditions, resources, materials and connections for clinical providers.

Other Reports

Development Without Displacement (2014) presents the health impacts of rising housing costs which are pushing lower-income Alameda County residents out of their communities.
Without Housing (2010), published by the Western Regional Advocacy Project, focuses on the primary reason so many people are homeless in the United States today: the near elimination of the federal government’s commitment to building, maintaining, and subsidizing affordable housing.
Rebuilding Neighborhoods, Restoring Health: A Report on the Impacts of Housing Foreclosures on Public Health (2010) describes the health and economic impacts that foreclosures have had on individual residents and neighborhoods in Oakland, roots the current crisis in the history of housing discrimination, and provides recommendations to help mitigate and prevent further health impacts.