Last year, when Tolisha Lee called 2-on-1, so that she and her son could get help with housing or shelter,

the operator told her to go and do an assessment so that she could get into the coordinated entry system,

or CES, as she calls it.

Okay. So tomorrow you can go at 1 p.m. at the Henry Robinson Multiservice Center to do an assessment for the CES program.

Tolisha did that. She sat down with a social worker and answered some questions and was entered into the system,

but she didn't end up getting any help with housing.

I think I just feel like somebody they forgot about me. They forgot about me and my son.

When Tolisha entered that system, she was essentially being put on a big long list with a bunch of other homeless people.

But what she didn't realize and what I didn't know at the time was that this list, it wasn't just a first-come, first-serve queue.

It was a list of all the homeless people in Alameda County ranked according to need.

The people at the top were considered the most in need of housing, and they were prioritized first for help.

I don't think it's hyperbolic to say that people may actually live or die according to where they end up on this list.

Homelessness is lethal. A study in Los Angeles in the early 2000s found that the average age of death for a homeless person was 48 years old,

and that life expectancy is about 36% shorter overall.

Housing equals more years of life, and being at the top of the list is a path to housing.

I want to know why as a single mom struggling with her mental health and living in a car with her kid,

Tolisha wasn't high enough on the list to get help.

Was she close or far?

And if this is a ranking of needs, how are they determining whose need is the greatest?

To find the answers to these questions, I'm going to take you deep inside of this bureaucracy.

Like Russian nesting dolls, there's layers to this thing.

But I promise we are going to solve the mystery of where Tolisha ended up on this list and why it fails so many people.

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