By Gary Warth
Jan. 12, 2025
New data released by RTFH shows the San Diego region has made significant progress addressing homelessness. For the first time since RTFH started tracking annual inflow and outflow data three years ago, the number of people entering the system for the first time matched the number of people exiting the system, according to the most recent 12-month analysis released by RTFH.
Speaking at the RTFH’s annual conference, Harnessing the Power of Purpose, in December, RTFH CEO Tamera Kohler called the 2025 improvement unprecedented.
“For every person who experienced homelessness for the first time, you housed a person,” she said, addressing local homeless service providers and others at the conference. “Let that sink in.”
Compared to a 12-month period from the previous year, there was a 13% decrease in people falling into homelessness and a 17% increase in people moving into housing from October 2024 through September 2025. August 2025 marked the first month in nearly three years in which more people exited homelessness into housing than entered the system for the first time — a milestone Kohler said reflects deliberate, coordinated shifts across the region’s homeless response system. She credited much of the positive trend with strategies to divert people away from the homeless response system and toward housing.
In actual numbers, 13,622 people accessed homeless services for the first time, an indicator that they had become homeless, while 13,410 people moved into housing, the equivalent of 10 people falling into homelessness for every 10 who were housed in that time.
The 2025 report shows a significant improvement over the first annual report released three years ago, which showed 10 people were housed for every 13 people who became homeless from October 2021 to September 2022.
Besides the gap narrowing, the latest report shows fewer people are falling into homelessness and more people are being housed. The 2022 report showed that 15,327 people became homeless while only 11,861 found housing over 12 months.
The data aligns with the results of the 2025 homeless point-in-time count that saw a countywide 7% drop in homelessness, with unsheltered veteran homelessness down 25% and unsheltered family homelessness down 72%.
Even more encouraging, the data show 20 veterans were housed for every 10 who fell into homelessness for the first time.
Kohler emphasized that the progress is tied to sustained collaboration among public agencies, service providers, healthcare partners, philanthropy, and housing partners — supported by shared data, aligned strategies, and a growing focus on prevention and housing stability. “These outcomes don’t happen by accident,” Kohler said. “They reflect years of intentional work to align funding, data, and practice around what actually helps people resolve a housing crisis and move forward.”
The gains are particularly evident in populations where coordination across systems has been most closely aligned. Expanded partnerships with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, regional veteran-serving providers, and housing partners, including landlords — and the utilization of the San Diego Flexible Housing Pool — have helped create clearer, faster pathways to housing for veterans and other highly impacted groups.
At the same time, broader prevention and housing-focused efforts have reduced the number of people entering homelessness, while accelerating exits for those already experiencing it – particularly through diversion strategies that connect people facing housing loss with short-term case management, financial assistance, and access to existing housing options outside the homeless response system.
Together, these shifts are beginning to change the trajectory of the system — narrowing the gap between inflow and outflow and reinforcing the importance of early intervention and coordinated housing solutions.
“These results show what’s possible when we treat homelessness as a system challenge, not just a programmatic one,” Kohler said. “But this work isn’t finished. The responsibility now is to sustain what’s working, strengthen what isn’t, and ensure that progress holds over time.”
As RTFH looks ahead, the organization remains focused on stewarding regional collaboration, using data to drive accountability, and continuing to align partners around strategies that make homelessness rarer, briefer, and non-recurring across the San Diego region.
