Homelessness is one of those issues that is easy to talk about and hard to solve.

It shows up in council meetings as data points and funding charts. It shows up in community conversations as frustration, fear, and heartbreak. And it shows up on Fairfield’s streets every single day in the form of real people, real families, and real lives that have come undone in ways that are far more complicated than any single solution can address.

At the most recent Fairfield City Council meeting, the council dug into the homelessness picture in Solano County with a level of detail and honesty that residents deserve to see more of. Homelessness Services Manager Samantha Burroughs walked the council through the current state of the system, the funding landscape, and the hard choices ahead. And Councilmember K. Patrice Williams pushed the conversation further than it might otherwise have gone.

Here is what was said and what it means for Fairfield.

The Numbers Behind the Crisis

Start with what the data actually shows.

Fairfield’s most recent Point in Time count gives a partial snapshot of who is unhoused on a given day. But as Samantha Burroughs made clear, that snapshot misses a significant portion of the population. Families couch-surfing between friends. Seniors living in their cars. People in motels that are not part of the emergency shelter system. The count captures what it can see. It does not capture everything that is actually happening.

The more revealing numbers came from other sources. Three hundred Fairfield households sit on the coordinated entry housing queue right now, meaning they have been assessed as potentially qualifying for permanent supportive housing or rapid rehousing but are simply waiting because the resources are not there. Fifty-seven households are on the waitlist for emergency shelter beds as of the meeting date, and thirty-seven percent of those are families with children.

Nationally, homelessness dropped by about 3.3 percent, the first decline since 2016. But California still counts roughly 46 unhoused individuals per every 10,000 residents, more than double the national average. Fairfield is not an outlier in that picture. It is a city navigating a statewide crisis with local tools that are never quite enough.

Every $100 increase in rent drives homelessness up by 9 percent. That statistic, cited by Burroughs during the meeting, is not abstract. It is the math behind what Fairfield families are living through right now.

The Funding Picture Is Getting Harder

One of the most important parts of the meeting was an honest accounting of where the money comes from and what is changing.

State funding for homelessness programs has dropped significantly since the COVID period. The state had about $6.9 billion flowing into homelessness programs during COVID. That declined to $2.5 billion in 2024 and roughly $1.5 billion last fiscal year. Federal funding through HUD’s Continuum of Care program faces legal challenges. Programs that cities have relied on are shifting their eligibility requirements in ways that affect what Fairfield can apply for and what it can realistically win.

There was some good news. HHAP 7, a state homelessness funding program, came through at $900 million, which was a genuine surprise given the current budget climate. Fairfield was also awarded $2.1 million through HHAP 6 for one-time use, targeted toward interim housing, emergency shelter, and rapid rehousing.

But one-time money is exactly that. One time. It does not solve a structural problem. And as Burroughs noted, her entire homelessness services team consists of two people managing grant applications, contract oversight, data systems, phone calls from residents in crisis, coordination with the HIT team, and the day-to-day reality of trying to move people through a system that is bottlenecked at nearly every point.

The bottleneck is not a mystery. People can get into emergency shelter. Getting them out of emergency shelter and into stable housing is where the system breaks down, because affordable housing simply does not exist at the scale the need requires.

What Councilmember Williams Pushed For

Councilmember Williams did not sit quietly through the presentation.

She asked Burroughs to explain what “uncaptured populations” actually means in practice, pushing for clarity on who the Point in Time count misses and why. Burroughs confirmed what Williams had suspected: families are the most significantly undercounted population in Solano County, and the school district data offers a more honest picture than the official count does.

Williams then raised something that does not come up often enough in policy conversations about homelessness: predictors. She asked whether the city tracks evictions and foreclosures as leading indicators of housing instability, not just the moment someone ends up on the street. Burroughs acknowledged that eviction data is difficult to capture comprehensively but confirmed that the delayed fallout from COVID-era eviction moratoriums is now showing up in real time.

Then Williams shared something personal.

She runs a transitional housing facility. And what she is seeing, in her own building, is an increase in women and children living in cars. She is seeing seniors, some her own age, coming in with chronic health conditions after losing housing they thought was stable. Also, She is seeing women who are not just unhoused but actively unsafe on the streets, experiencing violence, choosing not to sleep because the risk of being harmed while asleep is real.

She did not say these things to make a political point. Likewise, She said them because she has firsthand knowledge of what is happening beyond the data, and she wanted that reality in the room.

She made a direct ask to her colleagues: pursue the Violence Against Women Act funding that was referenced in the presentation. Push aggressively for funding sources that specifically address the women and children who are being missed by programs designed around other populations. And keep money in reserve to serve as matching funds when grant opportunities arise, because having skin in the game increases the chances of winning competitive grants significantly.

She also raised Mission Samoa and Bay North directly, praising both organizations for the quality of their work and asking the council to stay on top of application deadlines so those programs can operate at full capacity. In addition, She was specific about Shelter Inc., an underutilized facility she described as “a bad look for us” given the length of the waitlist and the urgency of the need. She asked the council to put serious attention on getting that facility running at the level it is capable of.

The Prevention Conversation

One of the most meaningful exchanges in the meeting came when Pastor Morris spoke during public comment.

He described a trifecta of financial pressure his ministry sees constantly: people who cannot pay their PG&E bill, people whose car payments are about to lapse, people one mortgage payment away from losing their housing entirely. His ministry steps in and pays those bills with their own resources, without reimbursement. And he made the point plainly: it is far cheaper to pay someone’s utility bill and keep them in their home than to try to house them again after they lose it.

Councilmember Williams picked that up immediately. She proposed adding reimburseable grants to the short-term solutions discussion, a mechanism where faith organizations and community groups could receive city or grant funding to cover exactly these kinds of prevention interventions, documented and reported back so the impact is trackable.

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. She said it plainly. And in the context of homelessness, the math backs it up. Prevention is cheaper, faster, and less traumatic than recovery. The city needs to fund both ends of the continuum, not just the visible crisis.

This connects directly to the approach Councilmember Williams has championed throughout her first term. And as explored in the article on Housing Affordability in Fairfield CA, stable housing and economic stability are inseparable. You cannot address one without the other.

What Comes Next

The council did not make final funding decisions at this meeting. What they did do was get specific, which matters more than it might seem.

They agreed to pursue Mission Samoa’s request to expand to ten beds, a meaningful increase given the current waitlist. They flagged the Violence Against Women Act funding for immediate pursuit. Also, they discussed the potential of reimburseable prevention grants. And they pushed the city manager to return with a clearer picture of how available one-time funds can be directed toward the programs that are demonstrably working.

Samantha Burroughs and her two-person team will keep doing what they have been doing: tracking data, managing contracts, fielding calls, and looking for every funding opportunity that fits what Fairfield actually needs.

And Councilmember Williams will keep pushing. For the women living in cars, the seniors on fixed incomes. For the families sitting on a 300-person waitlist. Also, for the faith organizations doing prevention work that the city has not yet found a way to fund.

That is what showing up looks like. Not just attending meetings. Bringing the reality of the people you serve into the room where decisions get made.

This November, vote K. Patrice Williams for Fairfield City Council, District 1.

Learn more at kpatriceforfairfield.com and connect with K. Patrice Williams on LinkedIn.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. How many Fairfield households are currently on the emergency shelter waitlist? 

As of the council meeting, 57 households were waiting for emergency shelter beds, with 37 percent of those being families with children.

2. What is rapid rehousing and why does it matter for Fairfield families? 

Rapid rehousing combines short-term rental assistance with case management to move people out of homelessness quickly. National data shows mid-to-high 90 percent success rates, particularly for families with children.

3. What is the coordinated entry housing queue? 

A system that assesses individuals experiencing homelessness for eligibility for permanent supportive housing or rapid rehousing. Fairfield currently has 300 households on that queue with no placements available.

4. What did Councilmember Williams specifically advocate for at this meeting? 

She pushed for pursuit of Violence Against Women Act funding, reimbursable prevention grants for faith organizations doing short-term crisis support, and full-capacity operation of Mission Samoa and Bay North.

5. What is Hazel’s Tranquility Place and how does it relate to this discussion? 

Founded by Councilmember Williams and named after her mother, Hazel’s Tranquility Place provides transitional housing for formerly incarcerated women and children in Solano County, giving her firsthand knowledge of the populations the city’s homelessness system is not fully reaching.