People experiencing homelessness are uniquely vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, particularly extreme weather. Unhoused Initiative Research Grantee, Dr. C.J. Gabbe, and UI Affiliated Faculty, Dr. Jamie Chang, researched the impacts and risks of heat exposure for unsheltered people experiencing homelessness in Santa Clara County.
Using geospatial mapping and in-depth interviews with unhoused residents of Santa Clara County, Dr. Gabbe and Dr. Chang examined the environments where unhoused individuals stay and learned about their experiences with extreme heat. Their multiple findings include that heat causes and amplifies health problems for unhoused individuals and that this population often has to choose between shade, water and stability when deciding where to live.
Based on their findings, Dr. Gabbe and Dr. Chang provide both near-future and long-term policy recommendations for California cities and counties to reduce the impacts of extreme heat on unsheltered people experiencing homelessness.
You can read Dr. Gabbe’s and Dr. Chang’s full findings and recommendations in the policy brief, which is available in the UI’s Online Resource Bank.
The Unhoused Initiative at SCU 