San Mateo County strengthens homelessness response with new leadership appointment

San Mateo County, California – Amy Davidson has been appointed as the new head of the San Mateo County Center on Homelessness, a role in which she plans to utilize her extensive experience to address the persistent challenges of homelessness with innovative and sustainable solutions. Having spent two decades in the field, Davidson has grown to have a great awareness of the complexity of homelessness and is fervent supporter of permanent supportive housing above temporary housing alternatives.

Beginning her path in the sector at a converted hotel acting as a refuge, Davidson encountered the awful reality experienced by the elderly and people with severe mental illness.

“I met a lot of elderly and seriously mentally ill people who I understood were going to be living in the shelter for the rest of their lives,” she said. “It’s great if it’s an alternate to being outside but I didn’t want people to spend the rest of their lives sleeping on the floor on these mats. That’s what got me really excited about permanent supportive housing.”

Davidson will supervise the Centre’s conversion into a division of the Human Services Agency in her new post. The Director of the Human Services Agency Claire Cunningham applauded the Center’s development into the key point for homelessness prevention for the county. A major objective for the county, she said, is reaching “functional zero homelessness”—a condition whereby homelessness is unusual, transient, and non-recurring.

The appointment is essential as the Bay Area’s entangled problems of high living expenses, lack of affordable housing, and homelessness are growing.

“The intertwined issues of homelessness, the lack of affordable housing and the high cost of living are particularly acute in the Bay Area and must be met with increasing urgency,” Cunningham said. “The biggest challenge our homelessness system is facing is the lack of housing options to enable our clients to leave the shelters.”

Davidson is positioned to unite several groups and stakeholders—including federal and state agencies—to generate ideas that cut over local boundaries. Her leadership is likely to strengthen the county’s plans, which include the recent April 2023 opening of San Mateo County’s first Navigation Center. The complex offers 240 units meant for transitional housing to enable residents find permanent homes.

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The county also started the Hopeful Horizons: Empowering Lives project, which gives services and shelter top priority before imposing rules prohibiting camps on public land in unincorporated regions. This project is a component of a larger plan including a $14.1 million state grant meant to increase comprehensive services for the chronically homeless thereby supporting their transition to permanent residence.

Davidson stays pragmatic yet hopeful about the difficulties ahead. Davidson said that homelessness wouldn’t be an issue if there was an easy fix for it. Her approach emphasizes the importance of a multifarious plan considering the particular requirements of every person impacted by homelessness.

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Under Davidson’s direction, the San Mateo County Center on Homelessness is poised to become more focused in managing and finally resolving the homelessness situation through improved cooperation and creative housing ideas.