California Governor's 100-Day Challenge Initiative on Homelessness

At the end of May 2020, in partnership with the California Homeless Coordinating and Financing Council (CAL ICH), four communities in California were selected to take part in the first cohort of 100-Day Challenges with a focus of permanently housing people exiting Project Roomkey. Project Roomkey is an initiative to provide safe temporary housing in hotels and motel rooms for the most vulnerable amongst us experiencing homelessness during the pandemic. 

The four communities to participate in the Challenge included

• Alameda County
• Riverside County
• Los Angeles County
• Stanislaus County

These communities came together at a virtual Launch Workshop to meet as a team for the first time, set their unreasonable but believable goal, and develop the work plans to achieve them. You can view a recap of the Launch and their goals here. [Review the CA1 data]

In a very uncertain and rapidly evolving time, the communities immediately began to collaborate, innovate, and execute towards achieving these goals in just 100 days.

At the end of their journey, the communities came together once more in September 2020 to share their results. Over the course of 100 Days, the four communities safely and stably housed 292 Project Roomkey clients.

"We can't get anything done without political will and support to expand and replicate this in other parts of the state.” – Tom Hernandez, San Bernardino County

View the community dashboards breaking down their results - including post-100 Day work, here.

In partnership with HomeBase, we’ve created in-depth summaries and case studies on CA Cohort 1’s 100-Day journey:

• California Cohort 1 Summary Report
• Alameda County - 100-Day Summary | Client Documentation Case Study
• Los Angeles - 100-Day Summary | Authentic Engagement of Persons with Lived Experience Case Study
• Riverside County - 100-Day Summary | Senior Homelessness Case Study
• Stanislaus County - 100-Day Summary | Partnerships with Agencies Case Study

In October 2020, the second Cohort in this initiative launched their 100-Day Challenge. The communities who participated include:

• San Francisco
• Santa Barbara
• Sonoma County
• Unlike the first cohort, which focused on Project Roomkey, each community in Cohort 2 had a focus area that included selecting a specific sub-population and an added lens on Racial Equity. Veterans, especially female veterans and veterans with disabilities or complex medical conditions. 
• Transition age youth (TAY) with a special focus on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LBGTQ+) Youth, and Black, Indigenous or People of Color (BIPOC).
• Addressing racial disparities in our housing and homeless response systems. 

"We worked with over 100 communities around the country on housing and homelessness. Californians have seen fires, floods, and a pandemic. It’s a time during which the unsheltered are the most vulnerable.”
– Sean Whitten, CEO, RE!NSTITUTE

Cohort 2’s 100-Day Challenge wrapped up in February 2021, and as a result, 240 people were safely and stably housed.

View the dashboards breaking down their results here.

• San Francisco - 100-Day Summary | Developing an Equity-Driven Rapid-Rehousing Program Case Study
• Santa Barbara - 100-Day Summary | Landlord Outreach and Engagement Efforts Case Study
• Sonoma County - 100-Day Summary | Partnering with Housing Authorities Case Study

In May 2021 the third Cohort in this initiative launched their 100-Day Challenge. The communities who participated include:

• Lake County
• Long Beach City
• Mendocino County
• Monterey County

The communities were able to make significant progress towards their goals in 100 Days, strengthened their homeless response systems, and kept a lens on Racial Equity throughout their challenge. Other California Cohort 3 highlights include: 

• Cross-system collaboration including standardizing training across providers. 
• New and strengthened partnerships between the city, county, non-profits, and with neighboring counties. 
• Distributing “resource cards” to clients with information on where to access shelter, housing, and services. 
• Crafting region-specific marketing materials for radio spots and journalists sharing information on the 100-Day Challenge. 
• Creating a “lived-experience” focus group and amplifying client voices. 
• Developing a data dashboard to help collect and visualize information. 

Cohort 3’s 100-Day Challenge wrapped up in September 2021, and as a result, over 331 people have been housed in California through Governor Newsom's 100-Day Challenge.

View the dashboard breaking down Cohort 3 100-Day Challenge results. 

• Mendocino County - 100-Day Summary (Coming soon!)
• Lake County- 100-Day Summary (Coming soon!)
• Long Beach - 100-Day Summary (Coming soon!)
• Monterey County - 100-Day Summary (Coming soon!)

In December of 2022, in partnership with CAL ICH, RE!NSTITUTE launched a 100-Day Challenge on California encampments across four communities: 

• Sacramento
• Merced
• San Bernardino
• Santa Cruz

With a focused lens on encampments, cohort participants were able to identify regional barriers to creating pathways from encampments to safe and stable housing. In the learning environment, that RE!NSTITUE’s 100-Day Challenges provide challenge participants benefited from peer learning and gained valuable insight into the stories and strategies other cross-county participants used to amplify the success of their challenge. Some success-yielding practices in the California 100-Day Challenge included: 

• Developing landlord town halls that can be sustained beyond the container of 100 Days.
• Strategizing a communications campaign that secured high-level media placement. The power of positive storytelling in local media helped warm relationships with the county’s housing and development interests, including landlords and city councils. 
• Commitment to the 100-Day Challenge placed a spotlight on the niche housing crisis in one community that generated an additional $400,000 in funding support for homelessness in the City of Los Banos (Merced County). City council members and policymakers were actively involved in this effort, with visits to the Project Room Key site and speaking with clients. 

"In California, three-quarters of people experiencing homelessness are experiencing it in an unsheltered setting.” – Julie Lo,  Executive Director of California Homeless Coordinating and Financing Council (HCFC)

California’s 100-Day Challenge on Encampments wrapped up in April 2022. As a result, over 1852 people have been housed in California through Governor Newsom's 100-Day Challenge.

View the dashboards breaking down their results here. Additional reports and case studies for the 100-Day Challenge on Encampments are forthcoming. Please connect with us if you’d like to receive those reports directly to your inbox. 

• Office of the Governor of California 
• The California Interagency Council on Homelessness (CAL ICH)
• HomeBase