Homelessness is often connected with many other challenges.

Addiction. Unemployment. Poverty. Interrupted education. Family instability.

East County Transitional Living Center, or ECTLC, has been working with individuals and families facing these realities in San Diego County since 2009.

The organisation provides emergency housing, but its work goes beyond shelter.

ECTLC also supports people through employment training, education opportunities, youth services, family restoration and longer-term recovery programmes. Its approach is built around understanding the individual issues that may keep a person or family in the cycle of homelessness and helping them move towards greater stability and independence.

Dr. Julie Hayden is the CEO of East County Transitional Living Center.

Through her work with ECTLC, she has seen closely how homelessness can be connected with addiction, poverty, employment, education and family circumstances.

At TALTalks 2026, Dr. Hayden will share the learning behind ECTLC’s work and why addressing homelessness often requires looking beyond the immediate need for shelter.

Her talk will explore how housing, recovery, employment, education and community support can come together to help people rebuild their lives.

Homelessness is one of the most visible social challenges in our communities.

But the reasons behind it are not always visible.

ECTLC’s work gives us an opportunity to understand what happens when an organisation looks at the whole situation around a person rather than addressing only one part of the problem.

That experience is worth sharing.

At TALTalks, we bring nonprofit leaders and changemakers together to share the ideas, experiences and practical learning behind their work so that these stories can reach and help other communities.

TALTalks San Diego 2026
October 29, 2026
Qualcomm Institute Theatre, UC San Diego