Visitors check out DignityMoves’ cabins in Santa Barbara, California. (Photo courtesy of Alex Seigel)
From San Francisco to New York, cities across America are experiencing a crisis in homelessness. California has approximately 30 percent—171,521 of 582,000 people—of the nation’s unhoused population, according to the US Department of Housing and Urban Development’s 2022 Annual Homelessness Assessment Report. California also had the largest increase in homelessness: up 6.2 percent from 2020 estimates, compared with an average increase of 0.3 percent nationwide.
California’s affordable-housing shortage has contributed to the worsening of the crisis, with the homeless population filling many of its cities with unsanctioned, year-round tent encampments. Yet, shelter beds in government-run buildings remain unused, primarily because they have serious health and safety problems.
Along with members of the leadership networking group Young Presidents Organization, Elizabeth Funk believed that the private sector could act more quickly to house the homeless than the government. Funk had served on the board of directors of LifeMoves, a homelessness service agency based in Silicon Valley. In late 2021, she founded the nonprofit DignityMoves with the mission to end unsheltered homelessness with an interim-housing model: stand-alone cabins measuring 64 square feet. Residents have access to communal buildings for dining, bathrooms, shower facilities, and counseling services.
The homes “offer a stabilization moment until the residents move on,” says Funk, who is also DignityMoves’ CEO. The nonprofit typically uses vacant, government-owned land at no cost for a set time period. “Using emergency building codes and prefabricated panels that are assembled on-site,” Funk explains, “we are able to build housing rapidly, cost-effectively, and therefore at scale.”
DignityMoves is a 12-person organization funded by private donors, foundations, corporations, and government entities. In 2022, the nonprofit implemented pilot programs in three California cities—San Francisco, Santa Barbara, and Rohnert Park. Its role is project management, overseeing all the entities involved with the construction of the homes.
San Francisco had approximately 8,000 homeless residents in 2019. DignityMoves approached the city with its housing model on several occasions—to no avail. But the nonprofit gained traction in late 2021 when the Bay Area grantmaking organization Tipping Point Community partnered with DignityMoves and contributed $1 million to the pilot. Tipping Point had earned influence with the city’s Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing through its $100 million Chronic Homelessness Initiative (no longer in operation), which had funded projects in San Francisco.
In partnership with DignityMoves, the city built a 70-home community at 33 Gough Street in just six months. Preexisting bathroom and shower facilities on-site helped lower construction costs to about $31,000 per home, and the city absorbed an existing $1.3 million annual lease on the privately owned land.
The pilot helped shatter a homelessness-policy bottleneck. “DignityMoves deserves credit for pushing the city to be innovative with a different model, one with a relatively quick stand-up and without significant capital costs,” says Supervisor Rafael Mandelman.
The city of Santa Barbara partnered with DignityMoves in February 2022. Using federal funding and private donations, 34 homes were built downtown with a cost of about $50,000 per home. This March, just seven months into operation, 44 people received housing and services, 11 found jobs, and 9 transitioned to stable housing.
The project has been so successful that the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors recently approved a DignityMoves community with 94 homes in neighboring Santa Maria, to be completed this August.
An additional 206 new homes will be constructed in other Santa Barbara County locations, and a capital campaign of $19 million is underway to cover the construction costs of all 300 homes. Back in the Bay Area, a new community of 44 homes in the city of Alameda was completed this May.
DignityMoves is expanding to other locations in and beyond California. And still yet-to-be-announced policy initiatives will help DignityMoves to further scale its model and achieve its mission of ending unsheltered homelessness.
Read more stories by Kathy O. Brozek.