California · Nonprofit
HOUSING MATTERS
HOUSING MATTERS (California) receives grants from 55 organizations whose IRS filings report $22,428,483 to it, the largest being Silicon Valley Community Foundation ($10,558,450). 35 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 65% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- Revenue FY2025
- $34M
- Funders on record
- 55
- Grants received
- $22M
- Net assets
- $32M
What Housing Matters does
Mission
Provide emergency and transitional services to homeless individuals in the county of santa cruz.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Program
Founded in 1986, Housing Matters is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization that partners with individuals and families in Santa Cruz County to create pathways out of their homelessness into permanent housing. We hold firmly to a vision that homelessness in Santa Cruz County should be rare, brief, and non-recurring. We are committed to providing programs based on Housing First practices. Housing First is a recovery-oriented, data-driven approach that centers on quickly moving people experiencing homelessness into independent and permanent housing and providing additional support and services as needed. By utilizing evidence-based practices, Housing Matters is successfully exceeding goals in housing some of the most vulnerable populations in the county.Housing Matters provides a continuum of services through the following programs:1.The Loft Emergency Shelter (the Loft) provides emergency shelter to up to 57 people nightly.2.Rebele Family Shelter (RFS) provides emergency shelter to families with children and provides stable shelter to 28 families (up to 90 individuals) at any given time.3.The Recuperative Care Center (RCC) is a 35 bed medical respite shelter operated in partnership with…
$15,833,527 spentof which $4,118,069 as grants$435,783 earned by the program100% of program spending
The program described on its FY2024 Form 990. Program spending in total: $15,833,527.
The organization over time
Each line starts at 100 in 2017, so what you read is the shape rather than the size: 150 means half as much again as 2017, 50 means half. The number beside each label in the key is where it ended.
Balance sheet
Total assets and total liabilities at each year end, in dollars. The largest one-year move in total assets was 2024 to 2025, from $30M to $48M (+57%).
How it's funded, over time
Each bar is one year's revenue split into where it came from, and every bar is the same height — these are shares, not amounts, so a year that raised twice as much looks the same size. Hover a bar for the split.
Government-grant reliance: 2017 57% · 2018 49% · 2020 54% · 2021 24% · 2022 53% · 2023 40% · 2024 93% · 2025 73%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 3 of the last 8 reported years ran a deficit.
reserve
Leadership and staff
The officers, directors, trustees and key employees listed on each return. Joined and no longer listed compare each filing with the year before, matching people by surname and first initial; a year after a gap, or a roster under three people, has no comparison.
Chief executive
Phil Kramer
CEO
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 17 funders to 23 funders, grant income rose $641k → $11M.
16 of 55 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 65% of grant dollars received. That money is really individual donors directing a sponsor; the institutions to cultivate are the non-DAF funders.
From the IRS filings of HOUSING MATTERS’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 55 funders by total. Association, not causation. Trends are read to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving. FY2024–FY2026 are still being filed and are shown unshaded; they do not move any figure on this page.
How concentrated its funding is
HOUSING MATTERS leans on a few funders — its largest provides 47% of grant income and the top three 63%; half comes from just 2 funders.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 2 funders to its left
89% of the income these shares are computed over arrives through pass-through sponsors or from payers whose filings do not say what kind of payment it is. Concentration is still measured over all of it, because the money is real; what it does not support is a claim about how many institutions have chosen to fund HOUSING MATTERS.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 31% · 2018 69% · 2019 53% · 2020 30% · 2021 37% · 2022 28% · 2023 76% — growing more concentrated.
“Effective funders” = inverse Herfindahl index (1 / Σ shareᵢ²) — the number of equal-sized funders that would give the same concentration. Trends are read to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving. FY2024–FY2026 are still being filed and are shown unshaded; they do not move any figure on this page.
How long its funders stay
49% of HOUSING MATTERS's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 64% give in more than one year at all.
Share of funders still giving k years after their first recorded grant, pooled across every acquisition cohort. A funder counts as retained in a year only if it made a grant that year. Measured to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving — a funder cannot be counted as lapsed in a year most filers have not reached.
Where its funders are
65% of HOUSING MATTERS's grant income arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors, whose addresses record where the money is held rather than where the donor is. Of the $7.8M that is directly attributable, 71% of it comes from California funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $15M arriving through sponsors registered in 10 states is excluded from the map and the split above: a sponsor holds money on a donor’s behalf, so its registered address would place those dollars somewhere no donor need ever have been. Trends are read to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving. FY2024–FY2026 are still being filed and are shown unshaded; they do not move any figure on this page.
Government funding HOUSING MATTERS receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $14.4M on record.
- Department of Veterans Affairs$8.0M
- Department of Housing and Urban Development$6.4M
Federal grants vs contracts are distinguished; state line items keep their reported category. Matched by name + geography (the BMF), so coverage is partial and precision-first.
Organizations like HOUSING MATTERS
Organizations whose mission and program text most resemble this one, by semantic similarity over every organization in the US filings — the closest peers, and often the clearest route to shared or prospective funders.
In California
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
82% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
100%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Footprint & structure
Files a return copy in 1 state
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for HOUSING MATTERS: IRS status (Business Master File, Publication 78, auto-revocation), the OFAC sanctions lists, the Internal Revenue Bulletin, and California registration, with the Rev. Proc. 2018-32 §8.01 reliance elements stated element by element. Generated from the current files at the moment you download it.
Screens are triage, not determinations; a source that cannot be read reports not screened, never clear. Screen this nonprofit · How the screen works · on the API as GET /api/screening/{ein}?format=pdf
Questions and answers
- Who funds HOUSING MATTERS?
- HOUSING MATTERS (California) receives grants from 55 organizations whose IRS filings report $22,428,483 to it, the largest being Silicon Valley Community Foundation ($10,558,450). 35 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 65% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- How many funders does HOUSING MATTERS have?
- IRS filings report 55 organizations giving $22,428,483 in grants to HOUSING MATTERS, 35 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of HOUSING MATTERS?
- Silicon Valley Community Foundation is the largest funder on record, with $10,558,450 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like HOUSING MATTERS find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in California. The funding by cause and by state pages list the largest funders for a given area and how to approach them.
Play a game about who funds Housing Matters →
These figures are read directly from IRS Form 990 / 990-PF e-file XML: this organization’s own return for FY2025 (financials across 2017–2025), and the filings of 55 funders that report grants to it. “On record” means captured in the filings we have parsed — a funder that does not e-file, or whose grant detail is not itemized, will not appear. Filings run roughly 12–24 months behind. Trends on this page end at FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving; later years are shown and marked, and move no figure. Data on this page was exported October 22, 2026. What this page cannot tell you · view filing