INQUIRING MINDS
Mapping Survival: Unhoused Communities, Urban Streams and Climate Change
By Julia Halprin Jackson
INQUIRING MINDS
Mapping Survival: Unhoused Communities, Urban Streams and Climate Change
By Julia Halprin Jackson
San José State Associate Professor of Environmental Studies Costanza Rampini studies how climate change impacts people living outside — and conversely, how people living outside interact with and engage with their physical environment. She has partnered with UC Davis Land, Air and Water Resources Professor Gregory Pasternack on a two-year study of urban stream corridors throughout the Bay Area funded by a Climate Action Seed Grant from the UC Office of the President.
Nearly 10,000 unhoused people lived in Santa Clara County in 2023, according to data from the county’s most recent Point-in-Time Survey, whichp counted families, veterans, children and people of all ages who lived in emergency shelters and transitional housing, as well as people sleeping on the streets, in cars, in abandoned properties or in other places not meant for human habitation. Though Rampini’s research focuses on people living outside, some of the subjects her team has interviewed have experience living in shelters or even creating makeshift homes of their own along the streams.
“In the field of environmental studies, there’s not very much academic research about people who live and sleep outside, especially when it comes to climate change, in part because this is a challenging population to work with by definition,” Rampini says. “They don’t necessarily live in the same place all the time, and they can be difficult to access. It can be challenging to build trust with them because I think they’ve lost a lot of trust in society in general.
“That said, people who live and sleep outside are the most climate vulnerable — they are our number one front-line community. They have very little shelter from the elements and weather extremes like heat waves and flash floods, particularly because so many of our unhoused have been moving towards and living along our urban stream corridors.”
Together with Pasternack, Rampini has assembled a team of undergraduate and graduate student researchers who accompany them on visits to various coastal stream encampments across nine Bay Area counties. They have worked closely with three resource conservation districts — North Santa Clara, Napa and Contra Costa County — and, in Santa Clara County, they have visited encampment sites alongside the Bill Wilson Center, HomeFirst and Life Moves, nonprofit service providers that support unhoused communities. Their data collection includes surveying land use along streams, creeks and coastal corridors, noting the amount and types of trash and interviewing people living in encampments.
Four members of the SJSU student research team shared their insights from site visits and the data collection process.
“I really hope that we can disseminate our knowledge to the community organizations that are on the front lines, interacting with unhoused folks day in, day out and providing resources. Once we get all the data together, we can share that although many of these folks can stay resilient, they are vulnerable in the face of extreme climate.”
— Abby Espinosa-Gonzalez Bellolio
Melissa Canabal Rosales, '26 MS Environmental Studies, and Abby Espinosa-Gonzalez Bellolio, '26 MS Environmental Studies, interviewed people living along the Guadalupe River in March 2025. Photo: Javier Duarte.
Putting community first
Abby Espinosa-Gonzalez Bellolio, ’26 MS Environmental Studies, is writing her graduate thesis on this project.
“We follow the principles of community-based participatory research,” she says. “We collaborate with community organizations that have interacted with unhoused folks and have been around these encampments for many years and have relationships with them. As we’re interviewing them, we’re providing them with resources — giving them food and water, learning more about their lives and providing them with $25 gift cards. We make sure they are over 18, that we have their informed consent and that they’re willing to share their stories with us. It’s impactful because everybody has a unique story and a different way of seeing life.”
Previous to attending San José State, Espinosa-Gonzalez Bellolio worked at a shelter supporting unhoused individuals, where she learned that one of the biggest takeaways of the research process is ensuring that the communities who need the most help have access to the information and resources they need.
As of February 2025, the team has conducted 240 interviews, 79 in Santa Clara County alone. In winter, it is sometimes hard to conduct surveys outside. Rain and wind can affect access to encampments, forcing inhabitants to seek shelter elsewhere. Fluctuations in temperature, inclement weather and flash floods can also be challenging for people with little to no access to cell phones or the Internet because they cannot receive timely weather bulletins. Rampini’s research also shows that they almost never received formal early warning from local officials. In addition, the threat of abatement and possible imprisonment, as well as the already vulnerable populations, can make the populations tricky to track down.
Rampini, Pasternack and their team conducted 164 site visits across the Bay Area in 2024 alone. In July 2024, California Governor Gavin Newsom ordered state agencies to clear unhoused encampments, a reflection of an earlier U.S. Supreme Court ruling that allows cities to ban people sleeping or camping in public places. Student researchers report that the criminalization of homelessness has shifted both the social and physical landscapes of the places they survey. Law enforcement agencies charged with clearing encampments start by posting abatement signs to inform campers of when they are required to move on.
“We’ve been seeing a lot of abatement posters, and we’ve noticed that when sites are cleared, it is really early in the morning,” Espinosa-Gonzalez Bellolio says. “[The authorities] will throw away a lot of what is in [the unhoused people’s] tents — including important documents like birth certificates, wallets, Social Security cards, documents that are necessary for people to find resources and housing. If encampment residents refuse to be housed, they are arrested.”
She adds that many of the unhoused people she’s interviewed shared their distrust of existing shelters or services, citing concerns about curfews, pet policies, safety and security and even fear of sexual assault. By listening and documenting the needs, dreams and fears of the people living along urban waterways, she hopes their team can communicate alternative solutions.
“I really hope that we can disseminate our knowledge to the community organizations that are on the front lines, interacting with unhoused folks day in, day out and providing resources. Once we get all the data together, we can share that although many of these folks can stay resilient, they are vulnerable in the face of extreme climate. I hope that sharing this data can lead to more holistic, comprehensive policies, and that we can amplify some of the voices of the people we’ve met,” says Espinosa-Gonzalez Bellolio.
Coyote Creek campsite, 2023. Photo: Robert C. Bain.
Costanza Rampini (center) with her undergraduate and graduate research assistants. Photo courtesy of Abby Epinosa-Gonzalez Bellolio.
Understanding environmental hazards
Jeff Wootton, who is completing his master's degree in geographic information science (MS GISc), adds that the team is also analyzing the environmental health hazards associated with each site.
“We want to know the level of hazard faced by people along these streams,” he says. “We use a lot of data from CalEnviroScreen from the California Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). They assign a score to each of the census tracks based on hazards, such as water quality, level of pesticides in the air, and all kinds of toxins. We have some preliminary data results showing that these encampments tend to be in areas with a worse environmental health rating.”
Wootton adds that their results cannot determine which came first — the encampments or the environmental hazards — but by mapping health hazards where unhoused people live, the hope is that nonprofits and other agencies can provide services that meet the needs of regional inhabitants. He adds that this experience has highlighted the importance of involving human voices in environmental research.
“It’s important to talk to people to see what services they use,” he says. “We were trying to gather spatial data for a particular area but realized quickly that we can’t do that without local knowledge. Some people told us they go to 7-Eleven to use their microwave to heat up food; that’s not something I ever would have thought to map. The experience really made me realize that any kind of environmental study that involves humans in any way has to have a mixed methods approach.”
Matthew Lee collected data during a site visit along the Guadalupe River trail in San José, March 2025. Photo: Javier Duarte.
The relationship between people and the environment
When student researcher Matthew Lee, ’25 Environmental Studies, attends site visits, he is surprised not only by the amount of trash found along urban corridors but also the variety. In addition to glass, plastic, metal, nails and drug paraphernalia, the team has found shopping carts, car batteries, abandoned construction equipment, and one time, a van door. Given the location and the type of materials they’ve discovered along the streams, the team hypothesizes that some, if not much, of the trash found in water and along the encampments is the result of illegal dumping. Lee shares that the research experience has been a strong complement to his environmental studies coursework.
“Environmental studies as a whole really looks at the human dimensions of the environment to see how humans interact with it,” he says. “So in our case, because we’re looking at unhoused people and examining trash accumulation around the creeks, it really does play into how humans are using the creek and how they are affected by the trash.”
As the team assesses the relative health of the environment and the people living in each area, Lee says it’s important for policymakers and the public to consider the impact of runoff, dumping and other possible contributors to pollution.
Arya Parekh, ’26 Environmental Studies, Geographic Information Systems, grew up in Vacaville, near some of the sites the team is surveying. The research project has given him valuable insight into environmental justice — a movement to secure the right for all people to have a safe, healthy, accessible and sustainable environment.
“I think this research will help us see the impact that these rivers have on unhoused people, and how unhoused people shape the land over time,” he says. “I hope that one day we’ll be able to have more shelters and programs to help people get on their feet.”
“I think this research will help us see the impact that these rivers have on unhoused people, and how unhoused people shape the land over time. I hope that one day we’ll be able to have more shelters and programs to help people get on their feet.”
— Arya Parekh
people living outside in Santa Clara County in 2023
interviews conducted by Rampini's team since 2023
Site visits in 2024
The work is just getting started
For Rampini, who throughout her career has also studied vulnerable communities living along flood-prone regions in India, New Orleans and Santa Cruz, one of the biggest takeaways of their work so far is the need for transparent and empathetic conversation. She encourages dialogue between community members, unhoused neighbors, policymakers, researchers and nonprofits. Since beginning this research in early 2024, Rampini has consulted elected officials at the city and state level, sharing findings about illegal dumping and trash collection across various counties.
“Our goal is to share recommendations with policymakers and community members to help them understand the impact of climate change on unhoused communities along the rivers while also working to increase the dignity of people living outside,” Rampini says. “I think being willing to engage in more conversations about homelessness and climate change is the first step toward change.”
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