Elizabeth Funk is the CEO of DignityMoves, a nonprofit organization she founded in 2020 to apply the high-technology startup model to addressing homelessness. DignityMoves is currently promoting an open-source playbook around their Interim Supportive Housing (ISH) model. Based on modular construction in underutilized sites, DignityMoves manages or is building ISH sites in San Jose, Santa Barbara, Alameda, San Bernardino, Thousand Oaks, and Rohnert Park, in addition to 33 Gough Street in San Francisco.
33 Gough Street, which opened in 2022, currently provides 70 temporary homes for individuals who have formerly experienced homelessness. It has been hailed for its cost-effectiveness, with a price tag of $34,000 per unit. However, a 2023 San Francisco Chronicle article noted that the city had struggled to establish a similar facility at 16th and Mission streets, with significantly higher costs.
Dignity Moves’ ISH model has been promoted by Mayor Daniel Lurie as an alternative to current shelters in working to reduce the number of people in the city living on the streets. Funk contributed to Mayor Lurie’s “Home Run” plan, a campaign promise to produce 1,500 shelter beds in the first six months of his term. However, in an interview with the San Francisco Standard, Funk noted that a “functional zero” would require 2,500 interim units, which, according to Lurie’s plan, will take two years.
Ms. Funk spoke to The Voice on May 23, 2025.
You got a project approved in Santa Barbara, of all places. I’d think such a tony community would have strong objections.
Our model is that we borrow land. That’s a significant part of the cost savings, as we don’t have to pay for the land. We take advantage of land that’s being reserved for something else someday, or a private developer who has a project tied up in entitlements or planning, such as the San Francisco project, for instance. The Santa Barbara land was a former county-owned parking lot for jurors, located in the heart of downtown Santa Barbara. It was next door to Morgan Stanley’s private client services for high-net-worth clients. Talk about a challenge!
Fast forward, and it’s such a huge hit that the Merchants Association says it’s the best thing that has ever happened. That’s because we bend the rules and we take the people sleeping in the immediate area. The first people who got beds were sleeping in Morgan Stanley’s parking lot. And all of a sudden, Morgan Stanley’s clients don’t have to walk past tents.
“… [A] very well-meaning ordinance has come through requiring [the housing sites] be scattered across all the different districts. … But if we make it too limiting and too restrictive, it’s going to make this impossible.”
— Elizabeth Funk
It was a huge hit, and so one of the supervisors took me to lunch and said, “I want one in my district.” And I said, “You know what? We’re not going to keep chipping away at this problem one bed at a time. Let’s do the whole county.” And so we launched what we called Dignity Now Santa Barbara, which aimed to assess the number of beds needed so that no one in the county would need to sleep on the streets. And compared to San Francisco and San Jose, it was a small number. It was only 500. We’re more than halfway there. It allowed us to reach what’s called functional zero unsheltered, meaning that the city has enough so that no one needs to resort to sleeping on the streets. And San Jose is doing it flat out as well.
Plus, Governor Newsom has also been supportive.
I believe it’s essential to acknowledge that historically, our state has allocated significant budgets to address homelessness. However, these funds are primarily dedicated to building permanent supportive housing, as only permanent housing can technically end homelessness. So we’ve shunned investing in anything temporary or shelter, mainly because shelter is something very unappealing to the person, even if it’s just a bunk bed. So we hold out for permanent housing, and when we don’t, the people who have to wait on the streets.
So when Newsom says, ‘Gosh, darn it, I want encampments gone.’ You can’t do that with permanent supportive housing. You can’t just snap your fingers. So, Newsom has been advocating strongly for a shift in policy to move toward interim solutions. And both San Francisco and San Jose are working on that.
Daniel Lurie promised to end unsheltered homelessness during his first term. To achieve this, he promised 2,500 additional beds and placements. That is the number that San Francisco needs to reach functional zero. So that’s the goal.
He’s likely to encounter some difficulties in achieving that goal, though, hasn’t he?
The most significant difficulty, first of all, is finding available sites, which has been hard enough to begin with. And now, a very well-meaning ordinance has come through, which requires that they be scattered across all the different districts. Philosophically, I agree with that. However, if we make it too limiting and restrictive, it will make this impossible. You can’t wait until you’ve identified a site in all districts before you start on any of them. There’s got to be a leap of faith that there will be geographic diversity. However, where districts have a disproportionately high number of unsheltered individuals, it doesn’t necessarily make sense to have an equal number of shelter beds everywhere.
What about drugs? What will the policy be in these spaces towards drug use?
Right now, you can’t require sobriety or, for that matter, any faith or any other requirements as a condition of getting housing. That’s a burden when you open one shelter at a time, and you’ve 2,000 people on the waiting list. You have to take the next 50 people on the waiting list, right? And so, therefore, you have to allow drugs because you would be discriminating against someone who’s a drug user.
However, when you take a step like offering a functional zero, it unlocks the potential to be strategic. For instance, if we’re going to open five communities, one of them can be for people who have to work at 6 a.m. and need to go to bed at 10 p.m. And another one is worth people who are still active in their addiction, are invited, right? And you can have one for females and one for veterans.
And I think we have to have some sites that do not allow drug use, not to discriminate, but because a lot of those folks are working, and they need to be able to be focused. And I’ve got several women at our 33 Gough [Street] site, two of them who are in their 70s, and they’re just scared of people with drugs. They’d rather be on the streets than have to be around that. To some extent, we’re discriminating against them by having all of our sites allow drug use.
In terms of the current regulatory and legislative environment, what would be the one change that would make implementing this program significantly easier?
One thing would be to make it more appealing for private landowners to offer their land in the meantime. Theoretically, they can have their property taxes waived if they use it for nonprofit purposes, but it’s a gray area and tricky. We were able to secure this for an owner who lent us a piece of land in San Jose for 10 years, on a dollar-a-year lease for an acre.
Some private landowners have paused their projects due to concerns about the economy or other factors, making their sites attractive to developers. Still, they’re concerned about liability; they’re afraid that, you know, the neighborhood would be upset at them. And so they get cold feet when I finally say, “O.K., great, then lend it to us.” But I think that there are structural things that the city could do to ensure that they didn’t have that liability, who could ensure that, you know, it’s understood this is going to move in five years, so don’t shame the developer when he’s ready to help.