Housing Matters announced the proposed service cuts to its Day Services program on Oct. 17, 2025. In an interview, Housing Matters CEO Phil Kramer said the decision was related to the nonprofit’s under-construction 120-unit permanent supportive housing project Harvey West Studios. (Nik Altenberg — Santa Cruz Local)

SANTA CRUZ >> City and county officials say they are at a loss for next steps after one of the region’s largest homeless service providers announced it will be eliminating a key program in March 2026.

Housing Matters’ Day Services program has provided showers, bathrooms, water and a welcome area for homeless people at its Coral Street campus for years, but will be ending early next year as the nonprofit shifts its priorities toward permanent supportive housing. Santa Cruz Mayor Fred Keeley and other officials said they now need to figure out how to fill the gap in essential services for homeless residents once the program closes.

“We’ve got five months to work and get it right,” Keeley said. 

In the county, the homeless population has gone down in the last three years – from 2,299 in 2022 to 1,473 in 2025, according to the latest point-in-time count. At the same time, homelessness in the City of Santa Cruz has also dropped. Despite the overall decrease, the number of people considered chronically homeless in the county has gone up by about 300 people since 2022.

Keeley said the decrease shows that the current strategies are effective and he wants to maintain that progress. He added that there are no large encampments in the city, though he acknowledged many people live along Coral Street, near Housing Matters’ services. 

Housing Matters CEO Phil Kramer previously told Santa Cruz Local the decision comes as the nonprofit shifts focus toward permanent supportive housing, such as Harvey West Studios, a 120-unit permanent supportive housing project under construction at the Coral Street campus. He said between 50 to 80 people use the drop-in day services on any given day, and many may not have alternatives.

Housing Matters representatives are scheduled to meet with city and county officials on Wednesday for the first of many meetings to address the evolving situation and how to lessen impacts from the program’s closure. Participants include Keeley and Larry Imwalle, Director of Homeless Resources and Community Programs, among others.

Widespread closures

Santa Cruz County Supervisor Justin Cummings said the closure’s timing is especially unfortunate given how many other local services for homeless people have ended or will soon be closing.

Community Bridges’ shower, laundry and hygiene services at Mountain Community Resources ended July 1, and Mental Health Client Action Network, which provided general peer mental health support, closed abruptly in September. Downtown Streets Team, which provided case management, outreach and employment support to homeless residents, will also be closing at the end of this month.

Cummings said he’s further disappointed that Housing Matters decided to eliminate the program without input from local elected officials. While Kramer said he didn’t think Housing Matters’ decision came from federal funding cuts, Cummings pointed to many other federal decisions that could push residents on the brink of homelessness over the edge, including potential cuts to Housing Choice Vouchers, also known as Section 8.

“There’s potential for a lot more people to suffer in terms of potentially going into homelessness as a result of the policies at a federal level,” Cummings said. “It’s a really bad time for them to have made this decision unilaterally without input from elected and local officials.”

While elected officials may not have been contacted prior to the announcement, Imwalle said Housing Matters let city staff know they were considering the closure months in advance. 

Imwalle said in light of this, the city will double down on outreach and connecting people to shelter and housing pathway programs, hoping to taper the need for public access services like those provided by Housing Matters.

He said it’s “too early to speculate” how the service closures may impact homeless residents or what might fill the service gap, but what is certain is that there will be widespread effects.

Immediate concerns

In the aftermath of the announced closure, Housing Matters published a list of alternative locations for public restrooms and showers, but did not include an alternative for mail service. 

Athena Flannery, a mutual aid organizer and member of Santa Cruz-based Homeless United for Friendship and Freedom, said the variety of services being cut will have deep, widespread impacts.

Flannery pointed out the small access points that will no longer be available amid the closure of the Day Services program. 

She’s worried that people will no longer have access to water, since a water spigot used by dozens of homeless people every day might no longer be an option. People will have to find new places to charge their electronics and use bathrooms or showers, she said, putting more pressure on dwindling alternatives and public libraries. She added that finding another location for temporary solutions has its own challenges, such as finding a building with the infrastructure for showers and bathrooms.

Without the draw of Housing Matters’ publicly accessible services, Flannery said people will likely relocate from Coral Street to downtown Santa Cruz, the Pogonip Open Space and into parks such as San Lorenzo, Depot or Harvey West. Consequently, she said that will only make it harder for outreach workers to find their clients.

“I don’t think the city’s prepared for where people might move if they weren’t on Coral Street,” Flannery said. “This is going to affect every program.”

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