‘Safe parking’: A 2024 study reports favorable outcomes in curbing homelessness

As vehicular homelessness rises across the United States, a 2024 study of one of the nation’s largest safe parking programs suggests that providing designated, secure parking spaces for those living in their vehicles can be an effective tool in addressing homelessness.

A three-year study conducted by the University of California San Diego’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning and published in March 2024 examined the Jewish Family Service of San Diego Safe Parking Program, one of the largest such programs in the country. The research team conducted interviews with 349 clients and 15 staff members.

The research found that 40% of participants successfully transitioned into housing, with younger individuals, women, veterans and families showing the highest rates of positive outcomes. Many participants preferred safe parking over traditional shelters, citing increased safety, stability and autonomy.

The extent of San Diego’s homelessness problem was addressed in a January 2024 report by kpbs, the public broadcasting station in San Diego. The San Diego County region that includes the city of nearly 1.4 million residents saw a 14% growth from 2022 to 2023 of individuals experiencing homelessness, an increase to 10,264 individuals. That number included 5,171 unsheltered San Diego residents with 5,093 individuals in shelters and transitional housing.

In Maui County, there were 5,899 people counted as unhoused in 2024, including those who lost their homes because of the 2023 wildfires and were staying in disaster-response shelters, according to the recently released “Recommendations to Address Homelessness in Maui County.”

The report says the number of unhoused people counted in Maui County in the annual Point-in-Time count has decreased year-over-year for the past three years, but the number of people who have been served by the homelessness support system has increased.

The 60-plus-page Maui County report references the UC San Diego study on Page 20. There, it points to safe parking as a “best practice” for crisis response, noting that it allows individuals to sleep safely in their vehicles while accessing homeless resources that vary across programs. Examples of wraparound services could include case management, employment support, housing assistance and basic amenities like restrooms and showers.

The UC San Diego report suggests that implementing a safe parking program could provide much-needed stability for those experiencing vehicular homelessness. Similar programs in cities like Santa Barbara, and Santa Rosa, Calif., have demonstrated success by offering a secure place to sleep, access to social services and a some stability as people seek permanent housing.

A Safe Parking program has been helping reduce homelessness and homeless encampments since March 2022 in Santa Rosa, Calif., a city of approximately 175,000 residents in the Bay Area north of San Francisco. The project started with a budget of $1.3 million and has continued with an annual budget of $1 million, according to Sasha Brown, a homeless services program specialist with the city.

Researchers behind the San Diego study recommend expanding safe parking programs to operate 24/7, increasing the number of case managers and providing ongoing staff training. They also advocate for federal recognition and funding of safe parking programs as an official homelessness intervention.

“Beyond immediate efforts to increase affordable options, structural changes must occur at the federal level to ensure a long-lasting increase in affordable housing,” the researchers say. “These efforts can include increasing funds for Housing Choice Vouchers, public housing projects and Community Development Block Grants.”

The San Diego study researchers were Leslie Lewis, Mirle Rabinowitz Bussell and Stacey Livingstone. They all hold various positions in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at UC San Diego.

“Based on our findings, we argue that safe parking programs play an important and distinct role in the homelessness services ecosystem,” the researchers said.

Another study, titled “Smart Practices for Safe Parking” conducted in April 2021 by the University of Southern California Sol Price School of Public Policy identified 32 community programs outside of Los Angeles and Santa Barbara that developed safe parking programs as secure places for people to sleep without fear of a citation.

“These programs offer secure places for people sheltering in vehicles to park and sleep in vehicles overnight while using a range of social services to facilitate rapid and permanent rehousing,” the USC researchers said.

Their study focused on program recruitment, target service population, service provision and program benchmarks. After they completed their report, researchers from the National Homelessness Law Center shared nine additional programs, bringing the total to 43 safe parking programs.

The USC team concluded that: “Safe parking programs can provide security and the basics for people to stabilize; however, their success at rehousing people is mainly dependent on the integration with a successful social support system. Measuring the success of safe parking as rehousing is measuring the success of social services that partner organizations often offer.”

The team’s recommendations for successful safe parking programs include: intentional program design, strategic location, fostering trust, focused social services, engaging stakeholders and implementing benchmarks.

“Programs can align goals and local context to understand which program design elements and features will best serve their community members sheltering in vehicles,” the USC report says.

Maui County’s Safe Parking Program, initiated in latter 2022, is under discussion by the Maui County Council’s Water Authority, Social Services and Parks Committee. The matter was deferred “pending further discussion” on Feb. 25. A video of that meeting is available by clicking here.

The Maui County report offers strategic solutions to reduce and prevent homelessness across the county. It also highlights the challenges of homelessness in the county and offers a “strategic framework” to enhance coordination, crisis response, stabilization, prevention and targeted efforts for Lāna‘i and Molokaʻi, as well as West Maui fire survivors. The report was prepared for the Department of Human Concerns by ECOnorthwest in collaboration with Konè Consulting and Munekiyo Hiraga.

In Maui County, chronic homelessness has been aggravated by a dire shortage of affordable housing, the lingering impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and the August 2023 wildfires disaster that destroyed more than 2,000 structures, mostly housing. Many displaced residents are living in their cars, which homeless advocates say underscores the urgency of finding concrete solutions.

Pacific Resource Partnership’s Winter 2024 edition of Hawai‘i Perspectives, a comprehensive survey capturing the voices of more than 900 residents across all four counties, found that homelessness ranked third (18%) on a list of seven top issues that state government should address. The top issues were affordable housing (27%) and the high cost of living (19%).