Key points:
- California struggles with growing homelessness crisis despite billions spent.
- DignityMoves founder Elizabeth Funk advocates for interim housing as a solution.
- DignityMoves’ model uses relocatable cabins on temporarily available land.
LOS ANGELES — For years, California has struggled with a growing homelessness crisis that has defied billions in public spending and decades of political promises. While most policy discussions have centered on the construction of permanent affordable housing, a growing movement argues that interim housing — private, trauma-informed, and service-rich — may offer a more immediate and cost-effective solution.
Elizabeth Funk, founder and CEO of DignityMoves, has emerged as one of the leading voices pushing for this shift. A veteran of Silicon Valley and impact investing, Funk said she was struck by how entrenched approaches to homelessness had failed to stem the rise in unsheltered populations.
“All I know is that whatever we’re doing isn’t working,” she said. “We keep spending more and more money and the problem keeps getting worse and maybe it needs a new angle.”
DignityMoves has built interim supportive housing sites across California, including in San Francisco, Santa Barbara, Alameda, San Jose and Thousand Oaks. The communities provide private rooms with locking doors, three meals a day, and intensive case management. Unlike traditional shelters, where residents often sleep in congregate settings and cycle back to the streets, interim housing aims to stabilize people long enough for supportive services to succeed.
Funk said the distinction matters.
“We call it interim supportive housing. Yes, exactly. It functions as shelter in the system, but we don’t use the word shelter for a number of reasons. First of all, shelter conjures the image of a bunk bed in a big warehouse,” she said. “And shelter is really, we have de-emphasized shelter nationally and in California, and for good reasons. Shelter doesn’t work. It gets you out of the rain, but it’s not a place where people are in a mindset where they’re stable enough and they’re there for a while where then the supportive services have a chance of efficacy.”
California is home to nearly half of the nation’s unsheltered population. The cost of permanent housing has ballooned to more than $600,000 per unit, leaving thousands of people waiting years for a spot. During that wait, Funk noted, conditions often worsen. “When people first become homeless, less than 20% have a serious mental or behavioral health issue, and four weeks later it’s doubled,” she said.
Leaving people on the streets is not just costly in human terms, Funk argued. Research and state data show it drives up public spending on emergency services, law enforcement, and medical care.
Funk noted: “The cost of leaving people on the streets by the time we clean up after them and emergency rooms and all that, it’s $80,000 a year per person on average. And the cost of bringing ’em indoors and have three meals a day in supportive care, it was $40,000.”
That framing — humane and fiscally conservative — has helped shift the conversation. Funk argued that interim housing can unite people who typically disagree on homelessness policy. “For the people who care about the humane and the suffering, this is the right thing to do, is to get people indoors and off the streets. And yet people who are fiscally conservative and are concerned about the impact on the taxpayer, the most fiscally conservative approach. Then there’s the general public who just quite frankly believe that, as taxpayers, they deserve to have clean streets and parks,” she said. “All three of those views verge on the current solution, which is get people indoors, even if it’s not their permanent home.”
DignityMoves’ model relies on relocatable cabins placed on temporarily available land. By borrowing parcels — such as those being held for long-term development — the group avoids prohibitive land costs and accelerates construction. Residents typically stay eight to twelve months, though the organization does not impose rigid time limits. Funk said stability comes first.
“When people get into interim housing, we are investing in their stabilization, and you don’t kick people back out just because the clock is ticking,” she said. “You figure out the next logical place for folks to go once they’re stabilized.”
Outcomes vary. Some residents reunite with family, others secure permanent supportive housing, and some return quickly to work and independent living. Across all DignityMoves projects, Funk said the average stay is eight months, and more than 1,000 people have already moved through the system.
Critics of interim housing have argued that resources should not be diverted from permanent housing. Funk rejected the idea that temporary solutions are wasted investments. “Even though interim housing is temporary, it is fiscally the most conservative and appropriate approach, not just humane,” she said. “Unsheltered homelessness is absolutely solvable, there is no reason we can’t get four walls and a roof over people’s heads. We just have to decide to do it.”
She compared the resistance to temporary housing to misplaced perfectionism. “Why are we so obsessed with putting people in permanent housing, especially for this population? If they could stay there for five years, they’d be thrilled,” Funk said.
That mindset shift, she argued, is crucial. Cities often prioritize those who are most vulnerable for housing placements, meaning newly homeless individuals — who might be easiest to stabilize — are left waiting until their condition worsens. “The people who are newly homeless and aren’t yet traumatized to the point that they can’t think straight, those people have to wait until they are before they’re eligible for housing. And that’s really fundamentally broken.”
DignityMoves has worked with municipalities to develop what it calls “functional zero” plans, ensuring that cities have enough interim beds for every person on the street. That approach, Funk said, prevents new cases from turning chronic and reduces long-term costs.
She also emphasized that political gridlock is not the obstacle many assume. “We’ve sent men to the moon and decoded the human genome. We have solved harder problems. If we can’t get four walls and a roof, we’re the problem. And that’s solvable, especially if it’s not a one side or the other argument,” Funk said.
The solution, she argued, is as much about public perception as it is about construction.
“I do believe the single biggest problem seeing in our way is people don’t understand that this is very, very solvable and it cost us less than it costs us today. There is no legitimate reason that we aren’t getting everybody indoors other than people don’t realize it. So spreading that word and elevating that optimism and getting people to demand, should the state be required to offer everybody a dignified private room and get them off the streets prior to building the next million dollar per unit apartment building? Yes or no? People realized fiscal impact, it would cost us half what it cost us today,” Funk said.
As Los Angeles and other cities brace for continued housing shortages and visible encampments, interim housing is gaining traction as a realistic middle path. Advocates argue it offers not just a stopgap, but a foundation for recovery. With dozens of projects underway statewide, it may soon become a central pillar in California’s homelessness strategy.
For Funk, the goal is clear. Interim housing, she said, is not just about shelter. It is about dignity, stability, and creating space for people to rebuild their lives.
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Breaking News Homeless State of California
Tags:
California California Housing Crisis cost-effective solutions DignityMoves DignityMoves’ model Elizabeth Funk Homelessness interim supportive housing unsheltered homelessness