Londell Earls has seen nearly every facet of housing policy up close — from federal agencies to big-city housing authorities, to the nonprofits on the frontlines. Now, as the lead for the Yolo County Homeless and Poverty Action Coalition (HPAC), he brings that layered experience to a region struggling to get a handle on its homelessness crisis.
And, according to Earls, the first step to solving it is understanding the terrain.
“HPAC is kind of a hub, or sub-hub, for HUD,” Earls explained in a recent interview with the Vanguard. “We’re not a direct service provider. But we work with them — we advocate, we coordinate, we collect data, and we help shape the policy direction for Yolo County’s Continuum of Care.”
Continuums of Care (COCs) are federally mandated coalitions of local stakeholders charged with coordinating homeless services in a region. In Yolo County, HPAC is still relatively new, though the idea of a COC has existed for years.
“We’re just coming into our own,” Earls said. “We’re learning what’s been done before, what worked, what didn’t. And we’re trying to build a more coherent system going forward.”
Until recently, Yolo County’s approach to homelessness was siloed, fragmented, and often reactive. Cities like Davis, Woodland, and West Sacramento each pursued their own strategies, while the county itself sometimes operated in parallel. The result was a patchwork of services with inconsistent coverage and few mechanisms for coordination.
“There was a lot of good intention but not a lot of centralized data,” Earls noted. “That’s what HPAC is trying to fix — we need an integrated system that works for everyone, not just the people lucky enough to land in the right program at the right time.”
The annual Point-in-Time (PIT) Count, a one-night census of unhoused people mandated by HUD, offers a snapshot of the problem. In 2023, the PIT Count found over 700 people experiencing homelessness in Yolo County — a number widely understood to be an undercount. The reality, Earls said, is more fluid and more complex.
“Homelessness is a spectrum. We have people living unsheltered, in cars, in tents, on couches. We have seniors, families, veterans, youth, people coming out of institutions. And each group has different needs. So it’s not just about putting a roof over someone’s head. It’s about understanding the human context around that housing.”
One of the largest barriers to addressing homelessness in Yolo County is the severe shortage of affordable housing. According to a 2024 housing needs assessment, the county has fewer than 30 affordable units available for every 100 low-income renter households. For those with very low incomes or histories of eviction, the options shrink even further.
Even when someone qualifies for a housing voucher or permanent supportive housing, the supply is limited and landlords are often hesitant to participate. “We’re still dealing with a stigma around poverty,” Earls said. “Landlords can say no. And when they do, that voucher sits unused while someone remains on the street.”
At the same time, service providers — many of them nonprofit organizations — are stretched thin. Earls has seen it firsthand, having worked for nonprofits like Next Move in Sacramento and Opening Doors in the refugee resettlement space. “We ask a lot of these providers, but they’re constantly chasing short-term grants. It’s hard to build a long-term vision when you’re operating quarter to quarter.”
Compounding the issue is a growing mental health and substance use crisis, with fentanyl overdoses and untreated trauma playing a major role in chronic homelessness. And yet, funding for behavioral health services remains inadequate.
“We don’t have enough treatment beds. We don’t have enough case managers. We don’t even have enough social workers in some cases,” Earls said. “We keep talking about accountability for unhoused people, but where’s the accountability for the systems that failed them?”
Despite the challenges, there are signs of progress. HPAC is spearheading new efforts to improve coordination across agencies and jurisdictions. They’re developing shared databases, standardizing assessment tools, and investing in upstream prevention.
“The data piece is huge,” Earls said. “If we can understand who is falling into homelessness and why, we can start to prevent it. We can intervene before someone loses their housing.”
There are also plans in motion to expand the supply of permanent supportive housing — the evidence-based model that pairs deeply affordable housing with wraparound services. Yolo County is applying for additional state and federal grants to fund these initiatives, and cities like Davis are exploring new housing developments focused on vulnerable populations.
But Earls is cautious about over-promising.
“We’ve had plans before. We’ve had good intentions before. What we need now is follow-through, sustained investment, and a long-term strategy that actually centers the voices of people experiencing homelessness.”
That means not just writing policy for the unhoused, but with them.
“We’re working on building advisory groups that include people with lived experience,” Earls said. “Because they’re the ones who know what works. They’re the ones who understand the gaps better than anyone.”
At the end of the day, homelessness is about people — not numbers, not acronyms, not bureaucracies. Earls believes the public conversation needs to shift from blame to compassion, from punitive responses to evidence-based interventions.
“Nobody chooses this. Nobody wants to live on the street,” he said. “But people fall through the cracks, and once they’re out, it’s incredibly hard to get back in.”
What keeps him going, after nearly two decades in the field?
“I believe housing is a human right. And I believe systems can change — if we’re willing to do the work.”
As Yolo County charts its path forward, that belief may be the foundation on which lasting change is built.
“Generated Image”
That’s one impressive generated image. I was trying to figure out where that was, because, much as UPRR has done a poor job of getting so-called ‘homeless’ persons off their property, no way they would let people set up tents that close to a mainline track.
After reading the whole article, I still am not clear what HPAC actually IS or DOES. But I’m sure that is due to my evidence-based lack of comprehension.