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Media advisory: Experts look at Bay Area youth, family homelessness

By Kathleen Maclay

ATTENTION: Reporters covering housing, city planning social issues, youth and families

WHAT: “Confronting Youth and Family Homelessness” is the subject of the Davis Lecture sponsored by the department of city and regional planning at the University of California, Berkeley’s College of Environmental Design.

Homelessness in the San Francisco Bay Area has long been a concern, but ever-escalating housing prices are directing even more attention to the crisis forcing thousands in the region onto the streets and into temporary shelters. About 25 percent of the homeless in San Francisco are unaccompanied youth or families, while these populations account for around half of Santa Clara County’s homeless.

Three leading thinkers will discuss what’s driving youth and family homelessness in the Bay Area, the special challenges their predicament presents, and policy solutions.

WHEN: 5:30-7 p.m., Thursday, April 19

WHERE: Room 112 of Wurster Hall, on the south side of campus just north of the intersection of Bancroft Way and College Avenue. A campus map is online .

WHO: Panelists will include:

  • Coco Auerswald , an associate professor in UC Berkeley’s School of Public Health and a pediatrician whose research specialties include adolescent health and homeless youth.
  • Rob Gitin , co-founder and executive director of At the Crossroads in San Francisco, which takes services directly to youths living on the streets.
  • Tomiquia Moss , executive director and CEO of Hamilton Families , San Francisco’s leading service provider to homeless families. The program also serves families in Oakland.

Moderating the discussion will be Carolina Reid , a UC Berkeley assistant professor of city and regional planning and the Terner Center for Housing Innovation’s faculty research director. She specializes in housing and community development, access to credit, homeownership and wealth inequality.

DETAILS: A reception in the second-floor lobby of Wurster Hall will follow the panel discussion.

The Davis Lecture is sponsored by the Sam Davis Fund for Social Practice. Davis is a UC Berkeley emeritus professor of architecture whose work focuses on affordable housing, housing for those with special needs and for the homeless. He wrote about solutions to homelessness for The Berkeley Blog in 2016.