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Posted inCommunity
“Urgent need”: Report paints stark picture of homeless services in Tucson and Pima County
4 key findings from a report raising the alarm on ”an overburdened system increasingly struggling to keep pace with rising need”
by
Yana Kunichoff
January 31, 2025January 31, 2025
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Ben, 34, shivering in the morning sun in Navajo Wash, has been living on the streets for two years. Photo taken Jan. 29, 2025. /// Ben, de 34 años, temblando de frío bajo el sol de la mañana en Navajo Wash, ha estado viviendo en las calles durante dos años. Foto tomada el 29 de enero de 2025. Crédito: John Washington Credit: John Washington
Day in and day out, social workers and case managers working to find people housing in Pima County hit an overwhelming reality: homelessness in the region is increasing, funding cliffs mean fewer beds, and the majority of unhoused individuals who request help from service providers are unlikely to see any result.
It’s an unflinching picture of a critical challenge in Pima County and Tucson, laid out in a thorough and data-rich report for the Tucson Pima Collaboration to End Homelessness, a coalition of community and faith-based organizations, homeless service providers and government bodies.
The report, published Jan. 22, also suggests a remedy: concentrating on prevention.
The report says that will require:
Increased coordination among agencies
Additional funding for social services like shelter beds and transitional housing, as well as rent and mortgage support
Non-housing financial assistance
Tracking new metrics for how people exit and enter homelessness It was written by two researchers at the University of Arizona’s Southwest Institute for Research on Women, Keith Gunnar Bentele, a sociologist, and Sara Shuman, a public health researcher, who work to understand where homelessness, poverty and public health issues intersect.
“Building, and sufficiently resourcing, a community approach to homelessness prevention has the potential to reduce ongoing overwhelm of our homelessness response system, reduce harm among households who avoid an experience of homelessness, and better position our community to weather future challenges,” the report says.
The report used an approach called systems flow, which emphasizes the flow of people in and out of the homeless services system — which encompasses local governments, nonprofits and other groups that work on the issue.
The report builds on a 2023 gap analysis published by the Tucson Pima collaboration that called for significantly more resources to be put toward homelessness, and estimated the city and county would need thousands more shelter beds and supportive housing units to address the growing need.
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In that time, Tucson has debuted new affordable housing developments and is in the midst of establishing a low-barrier emergency shelter that could open this spring.
Still, 2025 dawns on a “bleak picture,” the report says, striking a new tone of urgency.
“We [have] not yet observed any slowing of inflow into homelessness and there is increasing visibility of unsheltered homelessness in our community,” the report says.
Shuman says unhoused people, and service providers, all have a common goal: stable and secure housing.
But amid high housing costs and a range of other structural barriers, including record rental rates, a growing need remains.
“People are doing tons of work to treat, prevent, reduce homelessness, but despite all the resources that are going into it we are not doing enough, we see homelessness increasing,” Shuman said. “There’s just these barriers: there aren’t enough resources to get people housed. The solution to homelessness is getting people housed.”
Here are some key findings:
1️⃣ Homelessness in Pima County and Tucson was dropping before the pandemic, but now it’s going up and shows no signs of slowing. From 2010 to 2019, the number of people experiencing homelessness in Tucson and Pima County was trending downward, the report said. Then, amid the disruptions of the CO
