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Why it’s so hard to end homelessness in america.

Front-end loaders take down tents and debris.

City of Boston workers clear encampments in the area known as Mass and Cass.

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Alvin Powell

Harvard Staff Writer

Experts cite complexity of problem, which is rooted in poverty, lack of affordable housing but includes medical, psychiatric, substance-use issues

It took seven years for Abigail Judge to see what success looked like for one Boston homeless woman.

The woman had been sex trafficked since she was young, was a drug user, and had been abused, neglected, or exploited in just about every relationship she’d had. If Judge was going to help her, trust had to come first. Everything else — recovery, healing, employment, rejoining society’s mainstream — might be impossible without it. That meant patience despite the daily urgency of the woman’s situation.

“It’s nonlinear. She gets better, stops, gets re-engaged with the trafficker and pulled back into the lifestyle. She does time because she was literally holding the bag of fentanyl for these guys,” said Judge, a psychology instructor at Harvard Medical School whose outreach program, Boston Human Exploitation and Sex Trafficking (HEAT), is supported by Massachusetts General Hospital and the Boston Police Department. “This is someone who’d been initially trafficked as a kid and when I met her was 23 or 24. She turned 30 last year, and now she’s housed, she’s abstinent, she’s on suboxone. And she’s super involved in her community.”

It’s a success story, but one that illustrates some of the difficulties of finding solutions to the nation’s homeless problem. And it’s not a small problem. A  December 2023 report  by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development said 653,104 Americans experienced homelessness, tallied on a single night in January last year. That figure was the highest since HUD began reporting on the issue to Congress in 2007 .

how to solve the problem of homelessness

Abigail Judge of the Medical School (from left) and Sandra Andrade of Massachusetts General Hospital run the outreach program Boston HEAT (Human Exploitation and Sex Trafficking).

Niles Singer/Harvard Staff Photographer

Scholars, healthcare workers, and homeless advocates agree that two major contributing factors are poverty and a lack of affordable housing, both stubbornly intractable societal challenges. But they add that hard-to-treat psychiatric issues and substance-use disorders also often underlie chronic homelessness. All of which explains why those who work with the unhoused refer to what they do as “the long game,” “the long walk,” or “the five-year-plan” as they seek to address the traumas underlying life on the street.

“As a society, we’re looking for a quick fix, but there’s no quick fix for this,” said Stephen Wood, a visiting fellow at Harvard Law School’s Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology and Bioethics and a nurse practitioner in the emergency room at Carney Hospital in the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston. “It takes a lot of time to fix this. There will be relapses; there’ll be problems. It requires an interdisciplinary effort for success.”

Skyline.

A recent study of 60,000 homeless people in Boston found the average age of death was decades earlier than the nation’s 2017 life expectancy of 78.8 years.

Illustration by Liz Zonarich/Harvard Staff

Katherine Koh, an assistant professor of psychiatry at HMS and psychiatrist at MGH on the street team for Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program, traced the rise of homelessness in recent decades to a combination of factors, including funding cuts for community-based care, affordable housing, and social services in the 1980s as well as deinstitutionalization of mental hospitals.

“Though we have grown anesthetized to seeing people living on the street in the U.S., homelessness is not inevitable,” said Koh, who sees patients where they feel most comfortable — on the street, in church basements, public libraries. “For most of U.S. history, it has not been nearly as visible as it is now. There are a number of countries with more robust social services but similar prevalence of mental illness, for example, where homelessness rates are significantly lower. We do not have to accept current rates of homelessness as the way it has to be.”

“As a society, we’re looking for a quick fix, but there’s no quick fix for this.” Stephen Wood, visiting fellow, Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology and Bioethics

Success stories exist and illustrate that strong leadership, multidisciplinary collaboration, and adequate resources can significantly reduce the problem. Prevention, meanwhile, in the form of interventions focused on transition periods like military discharge, aging out of foster care, and release from prison, has the potential to vastly reduce the numbers of the newly homeless.

Recognition is also growing — at Harvard and elsewhere — that homelessness is not merely a byproduct of other issues, like drug use or high housing costs, but is itself one of the most difficult problems facing the nation’s cities. Experts say that means interventions have to be multidisciplinary yet focused on the problem; funding for research has to rise; and education of the next generation of leaders on the issue must improve.

“This is an extremely complex problem that is really the physical and most visible embodiment of a lot of the public health challenges that have been happening in this country,” said Carmel Shachar, faculty director of Harvard Law School’s Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation. “The public health infrastructure has always been the poor Cinderella, compared to the healthcare system, in terms of funding. We need increased investment in public health services, in the public health workforce, such that, for people who are unhoused, are unsheltered, who are struggling with substance use, we have a meaningful answer for them.”

how to solve the problem of homelessness

“You can either be admitted to a hospital with a substance-use disorder, or you can be admitted with a psychiatric disorder, but very, very rarely will you be admitted to what’s called a dual-diagnosis bed,” said Wood, a nurse practitioner in the emergency room at Carney Hospital.

Kris Snibbe/Harvard Staff Photographer

Experts say that the nation’s unhoused population not only experiences poverty and exposure to the elements, but also suffers from a lack of basic health care, and so tend to get hit earlier and harder than the general population by various ills — from the flu to opioid dependency to COVID-19.

A recent study of 60,000 homeless people in Boston recorded 7,130 deaths over the 14-year study period. The average age of death was 53.7, decades earlier than the nation’s 2017 life expectancy of 78.8 years. The leading cause of death was drug overdose, which increased 9.35 percent annually, reflecting the track of the nation’s opioid epidemic, though rising more quickly than in the general population.

A closer look at the data shows that impacts vary depending on age, sex, race, and ethnicity. All-cause mortality was highest among white men, age 65 to 79, while suicide was a particular problem among the young. HIV infection and homicide, meanwhile, disproportionately affected Black and Latinx individuals. Together, those results highlight the importance of tailoring interventions to background and circumstances, according to Danielle Fine, instructor in medicine at HMS and MGH and an author of two analyses of the study’s data.

“The takeaway is that the mortality gap between the homeless population and the general population is widening over time,” Fine said. “And this is likely driven in part by a disproportionate number of drug-related overdose deaths in the homeless population compared to the general population.”

Inadequate supplies of housing

Though homelessness has roots in poverty and a lack of affordable housing, it also can be traced to early life issues, Koh said. The journey to the streets often starts in childhood, when neglect and abuse leave their marks, interfering with education, acquisition of work skills, and the ability to maintain healthy relationships.

“A major unaddressed pathway to homelessness, from my vantage point, is childhood trauma. It can ravage people’s lives and minds, until old age,” Koh said. “For example, some of my patients in their 70s still talk about the trauma that their parents inflicted on them. The lack of affordable housing is a key factor, though there are other drivers of homelessness we must also tackle.”

City skyline.

The number was the highest since the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development began reporting on the issue to Congress in 2007 .

Most advocates embrace a “housing first” approach, prioritizing it as a first step to obtaining other vital services. But they say the type of housing also matters. Temporary shelters are a key part of the response, but many of the unhoused avoid them because of fears of theft, assault, and sexual assault. Instead, long-term beds, including those designated for people struggling with substance use and mental health issues, are needed.

“You can either be admitted to a hospital with a substance-use disorder, or you can be admitted with a psychiatric disorder, but very, very rarely will you be admitted to what’s called a dual-diagnosis bed,” said Petrie-Flom’s Wood. “The data is pretty solid on this issue: If you have a substance-use disorder there’s likely some underlying, severe trauma. Yet, when we go to treat them, we address one but not the other. You’re never going to find success in the system that we currently have if you don’t recognize that dual diagnosis.”

Services offered to those in housing should avoid what Koh describes as a “one-size-fits-none” approach. Some might need monthly visits from a caseworker to ensure they’re getting the support they need, she said. But others struggle once off the streets. They need weekly — even daily — support from counselors, caseworkers, and other service providers.

“I have seen, sadly, people who get housed and move very quickly back out on the streets or, even more tragically, lose their life from an unwitnessed overdose in housing,” Koh said. “There’s a community that’s formed on the street so if you overdose, somebody can give you Narcan or call 911. If you don’t have the safety of peers around, people can die. We had a patient who literally died just a few days after being housed, from an overdose. We really cannot just house people and expect their problems to be solved. We need to continue to provide the best care we can to help people succeed once in housing.”

“We really cannot just house people and expect their problems to be solved.”  Katherine Koh, Mass. General psychiatrist

Katherine Koh.

Koh works on the street team for Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program.

Photo by Dylan Goodman

The nation’s failure to address the causes of homelessness has led to the rise of informal encampments from Portland, Maine, to the large cities of the West Coast. In Boston, an informal settlement of tents and tarps near the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue and Melnea Cass Boulevard was a point of controversy before it was cleared in November.

In the aftermath, more than 100 former “Mass and Cass” residents have been moved into housing, according to media reports. But experts were cautious in their assessment of the city’s plans. They gave positive marks for features such as a guaranteed place to sleep, “low threshold” shelters that don’t require sobriety, and increased outreach to connect people with services. But they also said it’s clear that unintended consequences have arisen. and the city’s homelessness problem is far from solved.

Examples abound. Judge, who leads Boston HEAT in collaboration with Sandra Andrade of MGH, said that a woman she’d been working with for two years, who had been making positive strides despite fragile health, ongoing sexual exploitation, and severe substance use disorder, disappeared after Mass and Cass was cleared.

Mike Jellison, a peer counselor who works on Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program’s street team, said dismantling the encampment dispersed people around the city and set his team scrambling to find and reconnect people who had been receiving medical care with providers. It’s also clear, he said, that Boston Police are taking a hard line to prevent new encampments from popping up in other neighborhoods, quickly clearing tents and other structures.

“We were out there Wednesday morning on our usual route in Charlesgate,” Jellison said in early December. “And there was a really young couple who had all their stuff packed. And [the police] just told them, ‘You’ve got to leave, you can’t stay here.’ She was crying, ‘Where am I going to go?’ This was a couple who works; they’re employed and work out of a tent. It was like 20 degrees out there. It was heartbreaking.”

Prevention as cure?

Successes in reducing homelessness in the U.S. are scarce, but not unknown. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, for example, has reduced veteran homelessness nationally by more than 50 percent since 2010.

Experts point out, however, that the agency has advantages in dealing with the problem. It is a single, nationwide, administrative entity so medical records follow patients when they move, offering continuity of care often absent for those without insurance or dealing with multiple private providers. Another advantage is that the VA’s push, begun during the Obama administration, benefited from both political will on the part of the White House and Congress and received support and resources from other federal agencies.

City skyline.

The city of Houston is another example. In 2011, Houston had the nation’s fifth-largest homeless population. Then-Mayor Annise Parker began a program that coordinated 100 regional nonprofits to provide needed services and boost the construction of low-cost housing in the relatively inexpensive Houston market.

Neither the VA nor Houston was able to eliminate homelessness, however.

To Koh, that highlights the importance of prevention. In 2022, she published research in which she and a team used an artificial-intelligence-driven model to identify those who could benefit from early intervention before they wound up on the streets. The researchers examined a group of U.S. service members and found that self-reported histories of depression, trauma due to a loved one’s murder, and post-traumatic stress disorder were the three strongest predictors of homelessness after discharge.

In April 2023, Koh, with co-author Benjamin Land Gorman, suggested in the Journal of the American Medical Association that using “Critical Time Intervention,” where help is focused on key transitions, such as military discharge or release from prison or the hospital, has the potential to head off homelessness.

“So much of the clinical research and policy focus is on housing those who are already homeless,” Koh said. “But even if we were to house everybody who’s homeless today, there are many more people coming down the line. We need sustainable policies that address these upstream determinants of homelessness, in order to truly solve this problem.”

The education imperative

Despite the obvious presence of people living and sleeping on city sidewalks, the topic of homelessness has been largely absent from the nation’s colleges and universities. Howard Koh, former Massachusetts commissioner of public health and former U.S. assistant secretary for Health and Human Services, is working to change that.

In 2019, Koh, who is also the Harvey V. Fineberg Professor of the Practice of Public Health Leadership, founded the Harvard T.H Chan School of Public Health’s pilot Initiative on Health and Homelessness. The program seeks to educate tomorrow’s leaders about homelessness and support research and interdisciplinary collaboration to create new knowledge on the topic. The Chan School’s course “Homelessness and Health: Lessons from Health Care, Public Health, and Research” is one of just a handful focused on homelessness offered by schools of public health nationwide.

“The topic remains an orphan,” said Koh. The national public health leader (who also happens to be Katherine’s father) traced his interest in the topic to a bitter winter while he was Massachusetts public health commissioner when 13 homeless people froze to death on Boston’s streets. “I’ve been haunted by this issue for several decades as a public health professional. We now want to motivate courageous and compassionate young leaders to step up and address the crisis, educate students, motivate researchers, and better inform policymakers about evidence-based studies. We want every student who walks through Harvard Yard and sees vulnerable people lying in Harvard Square to not accept their suffering as normal.”

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How to solve homelessness – lessons from around the world

Homelessness is on the rise around the world.

There are an estimated 150 million homeless people worldwide. Some organizations are offering innovative solutions to the problem. Image:  Unsplash/Jon Tyson

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Stay up to date:, cities and urbanization.

  • There are many causes of homelessness.
  • Homelessness is on the rise in many parts of the developed world.
  • New approaches might offer a solution to solving the problem.

It's estimated around 150 million people worldwide are homeless – around 2% of the global population.

But the actual number could be much higher, because there are many states of homelessness – and many causes, too.

Have you read?

This scottish café chain has built a village for the homeless, this is the critical number that shows when housing breaks down, making affordable housing a reality in cities.

Too often, people without a permanent home fall off the edge of the recorded world. They don’t appear on official registers, in census declarations or in social security records. This compounds the homelessness problem in two distinct but connected ways: it makes it impossible to say how many people are homeless and it creates further difficulties in trying to come up with solutions.

But a number of innovative approaches to homelessness are creating both short-term and long-term solutions.

The UK capital is one of the world’s most-visited cities – and the red double-decker bus is an iconic, must-see sight. But strict emissions regulations have pushed many of the older buses off the road and into retirement.

Now, a social enterprise called Buses4Homeless is converting some of those decommissioned vehicles into accommodation , classrooms, diners and health centres.

Decommission vehicle into sleeping arrangement

One bus can provide shelter for 16 people, who are also given vocational and life-skills training. Their health and wellbeing are also looked after while they’re under the care of the charity.

Finding work and being able to earn enough money to afford somewhere to live are obviously important for people trying to break out of the cycle of homelessness. Elsewhere in London, coffee is helping do just that.

Example of Change Please Coffee van

An organization called Change Please is training homeless people to become baristas and work in its fleet of mobile coffee stores. Founder Cemal Ezel says, “If we can just get a small proportion of coffee drinkers to simply change where they buy their coffee, we could really change the world."

In Delhi, the charity Aashray Adhikar Abhiyan trained 20 homeless people to repair mobile phones . Almost half of those who completed the course went on to either find work or start their own businesses. The organization plans to run the course again next year.

UK charity Crisis lists the following as some of the common causes of homelessness :

  • A lack of affordable housing
  • Poverty and unemployment
  • Leaving prison, care or the armed forces with no stable home to go to
  • Escape from a violent relationship or abusive childhood home
  • Relationship breakdown
  • Mental or physical health problems
  • Substance misuse and other addictive behaviours

This means there is no one-size-fits-all solution, and the solution one person’s problems might only offer temporary respite for another.

Addressing the symptomatic problems of homelessness can be beneficial, but it won’t automatically fix the root cause of an individual’s circumstances.

For someone struggling with poor mental health or substance abuse, for example, it can be practically impossible to meet the commitments of training and employment.

These people can find themselves outside of possible routes to help, too, with some shelters and hostels not accepting people who have not dealt with their addictions.

The US-based non-profit Community Solutions believes it may have an answer, though.

Across the United States, more than half a million people are homeless. Most of them are sleeping in shelters and transient accommodation.

Number of homeless people by shelter status, United States

As Community Solutions says, “No single actor is fully accountable for ending homelessness in a community. Each local agency or programme holds its own small piece of the solution, but no one has their eye on how the pieces fit together.”

Therein lies the explanation for the intractability of homelessness. Operating in isolation from one another, even the most effective and well-intentioned of support services can fail to see the bigger picture.

By connecting all the different agencies and organizations that interact with homeless people, Community Solutions’ president Rosanne Haggerty believes homelessness can be eliminated altogether.

"Imagine a world where homelessness is rare, brief when it happens, and really gets fixed for those people to whom it happens – the first time,” she says.

In Abilene, Texas, they can do more than just imagine. They can see the results. Following the Built for Zero programme championed by Community Solutions, the Abilene authorities set the goal of zero homelessness.

Their first target was the homeless veterans’ community, which has now been completely eradicated by moving everyone into a home of their own.

A similar philosophy has been adopted in the Finnish capital, Helsinki. Rather than offer housing only to people who have taken steps to fix some of their everyday problems, such as substance abuse, the authorities now follow a homes-first approach.

The project, which will be completed next year, will be the first model in Finland.

Finland is the only EU country where homelessness is in decline . And it started by scrapping hostels and shelters that had been providing short-term respite for homeless people.

“It was clear to everyone the old system wasn’t working; we needed radical change,” says Juha Kaakinen, who runs an organization called Y-Foundation, which helps deliver supported and affordable housing .

The Data for the City of Tomorrow report highlighted that in 2023, around 56% of the world is urbanized. Almost 65% of people use the internet. Soon, 75% of the world’s jobs will require digital skills.

The World Economic Forum’s Centre for Urban Transformation is at the forefront of advancing public-private collaboration in cities. It enables more resilient and future-ready communities and local economies through green initiatives and the ethical use of data.

Learn more about our impact:

  • Net Zero Carbon Cities: Through this initiative, we are sharing more than 200 leading practices to promote sustainability and reducing emissions in urban settings and empower cities to take bold action towards achieving carbon neutrality .
  • G20 Global Smart Cities Alliance: We are dedicated to establishing norms and policy standards for the safe and ethical use of data in smart cities , leading smart city governance initiatives in more than 36 cities around the world.
  • Empowering Brazilian SMEs with IoT adoption : We are removing barriers to IoT adoption for small and medium-sized enterprises in Brazil – with participating companies seeing a 192% return on investment.
  • IoT security: Our Council on the Connected World established IoT security requirements for consumer-facing devices . It engages over 100 organizations to safeguard consumers against cyber threats.
  • Healthy Cities and Communities: Through partnerships in Jersey City and Austin, USA, as well as Mumbai, India, this initiative focuses on enhancing citizens' lives by promoting better nutritional choices, physical activity, and sanitation practices.

Want to know more about our centre’s impact or get involved? Contact us .

“We decided to make the housing unconditional,” he says. “To say, look, you don’t need to solve your problems before you get a home. Instead, a home should be the secure foundation that makes it easier to solve your problems.”

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Why Homelessness Still Exists and How We Can End It

how to solve the problem of homelessness

The Official Blog of the National Alliance to End Homelessness

By Jeff Olivet, Executive Director, U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness

When one person—even one—dies on the street, we as a society have failed them. When one family seeking safe housing and a stable school for their children is discriminated against by a landlord, we have failed them. When one young queer person of color ages out of foster care with no place to go, or when one person completes a sentence and leaves prison only to end up in a shelter, we have failed. When one Veteran returns from serving this country and ends up homeless, we have failed.

I believe we can do better.

Over the last several decades, our public policies have allowed homelessness to persist. We have created homelessness on a systemic level—a societal level—and on a scale we have not witnessed since the Great Depression. Yet we try to solve it at the individual level. And we have gotten very good at that part of the picture. Effective housing and service interventions like Housing First, Critical Time Intervention, and others have helped hundreds of thousands of people exit homelessness over the past decade.

So why does homelessness still exist? Is it because what we are doing isn’t working? Absolutely not.

We have developed systems that are increasingly efficient in helping people move from homelessness to the stability and connection of a permanent home. We see these success stories every day. It is what inspires us to continue in this challenging work.

So what are we not doing right?

One problem is that we haven’t scaled effective solutions to meet the demand. Another is that we haven’t held ourselves and our communities accountable to the goal of ending homelessness. We too often measure ourselves by outputs rather than outcomes. We haven’t gone upstream to stem the tide of people becoming newly homeless. And we haven’t yet figured out how to address the underlying root causes of homelessness, including the dual crises of housing affordability and eviction, and the persistent structural racism that drives disproportionately high rates of homelessness for people of color.

The result is that even as we see individual successes all the time—tens of thousands of people every year exiting homelessness, holding down jobs, reconnecting with family and friends, stepping strongly into courageous journeys of recovery from mental health and substance use issues— we have not solved homelessness systemically . It is time that we do just that.

A systemic end to homelessness will require:

  • Leading with equity , so that even as we work for an end to all homelessness for all people, we use strategies specifically designed to eliminate racial disparities.
  • Grounding our policy decisions in accurate, real-time data, and sound evidence , so that we are making the best use of the resources we have. Until we have a clearer picture of the scope of the problem, it is impossible to understand the scope of resources needed to solve it.
  • Going upstream to stem inflow and prevent homelessness from ever happening in the first place. This will require focused, cross-sector collaboration at the federal, state, and local levels in a way that we have not done before.
  • Strengthening our crisis response system to address unsheltered homelessness, encampments, and barriers to shelter, so that people stay alive long enough to get back into housing and supports.
  • Scaling effective housing solutions , with the recognition that housing is the stable foundation from which individuals, families, young people, seniors, and Veterans can achieve health, wellness, and connection.
  • Providing a broad range of supportive services —from mental health and substance use treatment to employment and educational supports to childcare and transportation to direct cash transfers—so that people can sustain themselves in permanent housing.

In the coming months, the team from the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness (USICH) will release our federal strategic plan to guide the work of preventing and ending homelessness in the U.S. The plan will reflect what we heard from many of you through nearly 100 listening sessions that included many individuals who themselves have experienced the horrors of homelessness.

As we finalize the plan and roll it out, we will need your help putting it into action.

The work ahead will be difficult, but it will not be impossible. If we can imagine a better, more humane society , a society in which no one is left behind and no one is without a home, then we can build toward that vision. We must come together—housed and unhoused, Republicans and Democrats, government agencies and nonprofits, faith communities and corporations, people of all racial/ethnic backgrounds and all gender expressions and sexual orientations. We must come together to find common ground around the shared goal of ending homelessness once and for all.

We have a long road ahead. Remember to take care of yourselves and take care of each other. Find joy in the daily victories. Stay focused, stay strong, and stay engaged until homelessness is a relic of the past, a faded memory.

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We Could Solve Homelessness if We Wanted

In Los Angeles, a neighborhood has gone to war with itself over a tent city in a park . In Philadelphia, the transit authority said that it would close a subway station —cutting off an entire neighborhood from transit service—because of disorder related to the local homeless population.

Both of these stories, from the past month, are local tragedies. Taken together, they underline the way America’s homelessness crisis has taken on a depressing air of inevitability—not something that can be solved or even directly addressed, but an immovable fact around which we do our best to adjust everything else. We are battling what Rosanne Haggerty, who received a MacArthur “genius grant” for her work developing housing for the homeless, calls “the myth of the overwhelming nature of the problem.”

This state of affairs is nothing new—L.A. has consigned an entire neighborhood to the street homeless—but what is new is the sense that we might, finally, be able to do something about it. For the first time in a decade, Democrats control the executive and both houses of Congress. The American Rescue Plan Act that President Joe Biden signed this month contains a big investment in fighting homelessness. In addition to $21.6 billion for low-income renters, it contains $5 billion for housing vouchers specifically targeted at at-risk renters and $5 billion in HOME grants, which cities and counties can use to invest in permanent supportive housing to prevent homelessness. It’s a lot. (The entire annual outlay for federal Section 8 housing vouchers, for comparison’s sake, is $22 billion .)

Sarah Saadian, a vice president of public policy at the National Low Income Housing Coalition, told me she is optimistic this infusion signals the administration’s intent to follow through on campaign promises related to homelessness—to treat affordable housing as an investment in infrastructure, and transform the housing voucher program into an entitlement. “This is the best opportunity we have to make a big dent in homelessness,” she said.

In 2021, not only is the large number of people living on the street a moral disgrace, it’s a problem we know how to solve. Homelessness is a housing problem, and getting people housing takes money.

Unlike gentrification, conspiracy theories, and other present-day phenomena that are in fact long-standing features of American life, modern homelessness has few analogues in our cities’ recent past. A 1976 history of low-income housing in America made the impossibly foreign observation that “the housing industry trades on the knowledge that no Western country can politically afford to permit its citizens to sleep in the streets.” The word homeless , in those days, was used mainly to describe persons displaced by war or natural disasters.

To diagnose the homelessness in their own towns, people have tried to convince themselves of many things: It’s the weather. Drugs. Social estrangement. Low wages. State disinvestment in psychiatric care, in caring for people with disabilities, in services for veterans. Ronald Reagan, infamously, said homelessness is a choice . There are at least half a million homeless people in the United States, so there is room for all those things to be a little bit true. But most of all, homelessness is about a shortage of low-income housing.

As Conor Dougherty writes in his book Golden Gates , urban redevelopment programs in the 1960s and ’70s “destroyed thousands of rooming houses and ‘cage hotels’ with single-occupant dwellings and shared bathrooms, removing a crucial support of last-resort shelter.” New York lost 109,000 single room occupancy units between 1971 and 1987. Roughly half the SRO stocks of Los Angeles and Seattle vanished in the same time frame. Chicago lost 80 percent of its SROs between 1960 and 1980, a decline of about 70,000 units. Prior to that, a man could work a little, drink a lot, and still afford a room to lay his head. Afterward, not so much.

Though homelessness has dropped by double digits in the United States since 2007, according to U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development data published last week , it has increased by double digits in four places: New York, California, Massachusetts, and the District of Columbia. Those places are not linked by their stingy safety nets, high rates of poverty, or substance abuse issues. They all just have really expensive housing.

That homelessness is connected to high housing costs may pass for counterintuitive because the popular image of homelessness is so closely linked to the chronically homeless—adult men, many of whom have a disability, who have spent years living on the street. These people need help , the thinking goes, not just a house.

But it’s hard for the web of city agencies, nonprofits, and religious institutions to focus on treating and helping those people when their ranks are swollen by the people sometimes called the “transitionally homeless”—Americans, often older, sometimes working, sometimes with cars, who would be ready and able to hold down an apartment if they could just get a little help with the rent.

New York City, the homelessness capital of the country, epitomizes this mismatch. Subway homelessness is the flashpoint: Transit workers often complain about harassment and attacks (and, more recently, getting the coronavirus) from homeless people in trains. Gov. Andrew Cuomo went so far as to shut the whole system down every night for the first sustained period since it opened more than a century ago, to clear people from the cars under the guise of cleaning them. According to the city’s point-in-time counts, there are 2,000 people who sleep in the subway each winter. You could rent each of them a decent apartment for a total of $50 million a year. Pandemic-era cleaning of the subway will likely end up costing 10 times that much .

But these avatars of the homeless crisis are not representative . More than two-thirds of the city’s homeless population consists of families with children; a third of those include at least one working adult. Their average length of stay in city facilities is more than a year. The many reasons they end up in a shelter or city-rented hotel room may include job loss, eviction, or domestic violence. But there is one clear way they get out: Only 1 percent of families who exit the shelter system for subsidized housing are back within a year.

This suggests that an ample system of housing subsidy might put tens of thousands of people back in homes virtually overnight. But New York state’s state shelter allowance for a mom and two kids maxes out at $400 a month. There are 60,000 homeless people in New York City’s shelter system, and fewer than 500 households a year receive Section 8 vouchers.

That’s an issue Democrats could fix right now by expanding the housing choice voucher program, which only covers one in four low-income renters in this country. The Section 8 waitlist has been closed in New York City since 2009. In Los Angeles, the waitlist was closed for 13 years before it reopened (and then closed again) in 2017. Even lower-cost cities like Houston go years without taking new applicants.

Guaranteed housing assistance wouldn’t just help families who have just lost their homes. After Hurricane Katrina, Martha Kegel, the director of the anti-homelessness nonprofit UNITY of Greater New Orleans, fought for an expansion of vouchers for people who were homeless and disabled. The city got 1,000 of them, which was instrumental in helping reduce the post-Katrina homeless population by 90 percent. The conventional wisdom that homeless people are “hard to reach” is linked to the low-quality support services on offer, she argued. “Almost no one will turn down an apartment.” Demand-side subsidy doesn’t solve every problem, but it does encourage landlords and owners to bring new affordable units into the market, she added.

The emphasis on housing vouchers is part of a philosophical sea change in homelessness policy over the past few decades, from “housing ready”—you have to solve a person’s problems before they’re ready for housing—to “housing first”: Get a roof over someone’s head and the rest will be easier to work out. It’s much easier to provide “wraparound services” to the homeless people who need help if they have a fixed address. (This is one of many miracles associated with providing proper housing; another is alleviating the overcrowded dwellings that have proved so deadly during the pandemic.)

Like poverty, homelessness has many self-reinforcing costs: injury, theft, jail time for minor offenses like public urination or having an open container. Health care costs fall so much when people have shelter that the University of Illinois Hospital in Chicago started renting units for the most frequent visitors to its emergency room.

Take this logic up a level and you can see how American homelessness is not just a moral disgrace, but an expensive one too. City, state, and federal balance sheets may not look good when they pour money into affordable housing, but the savings are spread across the economy: Fewer people on the street saves time and money for doctors, nurses, police officers, firefighters, and the entire criminal justice system. All it takes is a roof over your head.

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‘People say all the time, “I understand.” No, you don’t.’

‘Talk to us about our wants and needs. Talk to us like adults. Like human beings.’

As this country struggles with a growing crisis of homelessness, it’s time to start listening to the people who are living it.

how to solve the problem of homelessness

A Life Without A

Voices from the tents, shelters, cars, motels and couches of America.

A record number of people across the country are experiencing homelessness: the federal government’s annual tally last year revealed the highest numbers of unsheltered people since the count began in 2007. Politicians and policymakers are grappling with what can be done. But the people who are actually experiencing homelessness are rarely part of the conversation.

Lori Teresa Yearwood, a journalist who lived through years of homelessness, spoke of the ways we discount those without shelter. “Society created a new species of people, and we carefully crafted an image of them: one of broken passivity and victimhood, people in need of constant scrutiny and monitoring,” she said in a 2022 speech. “When we shift and widen the perspective of the unhoused, that’s when things radically change.” Ms. Yearwood collaborated with Times Opinion on this project before her untimely death in September. She understood what many who have not experienced homelessness ignore: that people without shelter have something to say — and often something of great worth — about what it’s like to live inside this country’s cobbled-together solutions.

That’s why we sent reporters and photographers to different parts of the country to meet with people experiencing homelessness in very different ways. We asked them to fill out surveys, take videos, use disposable cameras and have their children share drawings.

Whatever led them to homelessness, the people who spoke to The Times want a way out. As the nation debates how to help them, they shared the solutions they want to see.

how to solve the problem of homelessness

Chelsie Stevens has been sleeping on friends’ couches while she attends community college.

how to solve the problem of homelessness

She and her children are some of the estimated 3.7 million Americans who are doubled up, a kind of homelessness hidden in plain sight.

A Is Not a Home

By Linda Villarosa Photographs by Sasha Phyars-Burgess

Crashing at someone’s house, doubling up, couch surfing: It all conjures a rosy scenario in which someone takes in friends or family members who have fallen on hard times, offering them comfort, safety and a roof over their …

Crashing at someone’s house, doubling up, couch surfing: It all conjures a rosy scenario in which someone takes in friends or family members who have fallen on hard times, offering them comfort, safety and a roof over their heads. But in reality, doubling up is a much more complicated, under-the-radar form of homelessness. It may be a temporary solution, a precursor to living in a shelter or on the street, or part of a cycle of housing instability that involves crowded living conditions and a devastating lack of privacy and safety. The Department of Housing and Urban Development doesn’t recognize doubling up as homelessness, which can mean that families and individuals who live with others — by necessity, not choice — lose out on essential government services and benefits.

how to solve the problem of homelessness

Chelsie Stevens’s sons, 11 and 14, sleeping on an inflatable bed.

But we can have a sense of the size of the problem by looking at the children. Thanks to landmark 1987 legislation, children who share housing because of economic hardship or loss of their homes qualify for benefits through their public schools: dedicated liaisons, free lunch, free transportation to school even if they are living out of the district. In 2022, public schools counted 1,205,292 homeless students, 76 percent of whom were doubled up. We met with four single moms, all of whom were crashing at someone else’s house with their children.

For parents who lose stable housing, options are limited: In many areas, family shelters are few and far between, and motel rooms get expensive. But staying with others comes with its own costs.

Jackie Randolph , 34, is staying with her five children in a bedroom at her ex-partner’s place in Cincinnati : We got to be quiet. We can’t talk loud. We can’t have fun. We can’t do nothing. It’s like living in jail. We got to be sneaky because of the neighbors. They’re really set in their ways and they ain’t trying to have nobody that stay over there that don’t live there.

Chelsie Stevens, 33, has been on friends’ couches with one of her children while the others sleep at their grandparents’ house near Sarasota, Fla . : I met my current host getting cleaning jobs from him. Thankfully he understood my situation because he has been in my shoes and let me pay him $600 a month to stay with him. He makes me feel like we’re welcome to stay in his house but it’s a little uncomfortable because now that I am staying here, our relationship went from a friendship about work to some odd feeling like he likes me or wants to date me. But we have nowhere else to go.

Michelle Schultz, 52, has been staying on friends’ couches with her daughter near Waukesha, Wis. : It can cause a strain on even the best friendships. As much as it's nice that people will do that, it’s a burden for them to take up that extra space.

Lizbeth Santiago, 28, sleeps with her two children on the floor of her sister’s living room in Fort Worth : Living with my sister feels terrible. It’s very tense. My children are very loud and rambunctious while her son is quiet. My sister, having anxiety and paranoia and autism, it’s upsetting for her. So I feel quite bad.

how to solve the problem of homelessness

Staying at someone’s house makes securing benefits tricky: The government often counts benefits by household instead of per individual family.

Lizbeth Santiago : I don’t have SNAP benefits or anything. My sister gets a Social Security check for my nephew because he’s autistic and that helps them a lot. If they didn’t have that, they also would not be making it. But because I live with them, I can’t apply for SNAP benefits — that would negatively affect her. And would put an even bigger strain on our relationship.

Michelle Schultz : Because state regulations want to include everybody you’re living with in their income, I had to lie this whole 10 years that I've been homeless. If they know what the household income is, I would lose food stamps. I would lose benefits to the point where I’d probably have to pay copay for doctor prescriptions. I just had to tell them I was homeless and I gave them a mailing address of a P.O. box.

Beyond their own day-to-day concerns, these parents worry about how their living conditions are affecting their children.

Chelsie Stevens : They are behaving poorly in school. My oldest is always worried about me and has a hard time focusing. The kids seem depressed more now.

Lizbeth Santiago : I know it affects her. She tries to hide it. She’s a child. I want her to be a child. I don’t want her to worry about why Mommy’s upset. Those are adult concerns. Those are things that she shouldn’t have on her mind. I wish she didn’t have to experience any of that.

Jackie Randolph : My only goal is making sure my kids stay happy so they don’t think about the situation we are in. Every time they start doubting or they get weary, I just say: “This is just going to make us stronger. It’s going to bring us closer together. You could tell your kids about this.” So they could say: “My mom, she did not give up. She did not give up. She kept fighting.” My kids is the reason why I’m not in a crazy house right now. Because I probably should have been years ago.

Jackie Randolph’s youngest daughter, Clinteria.

Chelsie Stevens’s youngest daughter, Faith.

Navigating the bureaucracy of homelessness is difficult for people who are doubled up. Here’s what they want and need.

Lizbeth Santiago : A job that pays enough. But the harsh reality is it won’t be enough. I donate plasma two times a week and I’m still going to continue to have to do that. I also go to a food pantry once a week to get food.

Jackie Randolph : Stop making the process so long. If somebody needs help today, why would you say, “Next week we’ll be here to help you” or “Give us 30 days to help you”?

Michelle Schultz : If I could have had some help with day care to be able to go and look for a job.

Chelsie Stevens : There needs to be something in place for the young kids growing up in poverty, and parents of those kids. To guide them at a young age how to not end up like I am. Not everyone is born into normalcy and structure or love. Until a person is taught, how can they know?

Like so many others experiencing homelessness, Chelsie Stevens found that her situation deteriorated the longer she was out of stable housing.

After staying at her friend’s apartment for several months, she left when her host made her feel uncomfortable. Her children slept at their grandparents’ house while she slept in her car.

Scroll to read what people living in motels, cars, encampments and shelters want others to understand about homelessness in America.

Times Opinion asked people experiencing homelessness to respond to a survey in their own writing.

How has your life changed since you became homeless?

Edward Taylor, 47, has been sleeping in his car for several months.

Chelsie Stevens, 33, sleeps on friends’ couches and in her car.

Since she lost her family home nearly a year ago, Kimberly has been living in a motel.

Terri Ann Romo, 43, sleeps in a car she shares with her elderly mother.

how to solve the problem of homelessness

People like Kimberly who turn to motels for shelter are often not even counted as homeless.

By Samantha M. Shapiro Photographs by Paul D’Amato

They arrive in cars crammed with the contents of the homes they were evicted from, or by bus, weighed down by bags. They walk over, in wet socks or ruined pants, from a tent encampment nearby when the weather is too rough to be …

They arrive in cars crammed with the contents of the homes they were evicted from, or by bus, weighed down by bags. They walk over, in wet socks or ruined pants, from a tent encampment nearby when the weather is too rough to be outside. They leave their kids sleeping in the queen beds when they go to work the night shift at an Amazon warehouse. Few of the guests at this airport motel arrive on a flight; most are locals in search of affordable shelter. A yellow school bus picks up children outside the lobby and police cars and outreach workers do rounds through the parking lot, but mostly the true role the motel plays is invisible and improvised by desk clerks. The capacity of shelters and subsidized housing hasn’t kept pace with the growing homelessness crisis, so New York and other cities have turned to private motels to house people, and some charities offer emergency vouchers for brief stays. During the Covid pandemic, empty hotels and motels were also temporarily converted into official homeless shelters; most of those programs have since wound down. But even in places where motels are not officially serving as homeless shelters, people who have lost their housing simply pay the rack rate when they have nowhere else to go. Motels offer an option for those who are shut out of rentals because of evictions on their records or for parents who do not want to be separated from their children, as many shelters do not accept families. We spoke with 11 people who are temporarily staying in a motel on the outskirts of Milwaukee.

how to solve the problem of homelessness

Ashley and her twin children in their motel room.

Paying by the night or week is more feasible for those who struggle to put together enough cash for a security deposit and one month’s rent. But the cost of a room can vary from night to night and the monthly cost of a motel stay is often much higher than rent.

Ashley, 38, has been staying with four of her five children in a motel room for the last several months : This is my first time being displaced from housing. The first two weeks were the roughest. I didn’t know where to go. I’m used to having birthday parties at hotels for my kids — I’m really only in hotels then or if we’re on vacation. I didn’t know you can rent hotels to live. I pay daily at these hotels. It’s expensive. On a good night, it costs $51; with tax, $56. On weekends it’s $73. They usually tell me if something special is going on, because it’ll go up. For the state fair, they actually put all the homeless people out. I was back in my car for two weeks.

Kala, 32, has been battling drug addiction for years. She and her partner stay in motel rooms whenever they have enough money : You are basically on a timer that gives you anxiety and puts you on an edge. I have to figure out how to come up with another 70 bucks in less than 24 hours every day. It’s the same thing as being homeless. Yeah, I can sleep here for 12 hours but in 12 hours I got to figure something out, so I am not doing anything with that 12 hours — just stressing over how I’m going to pay for the next 12 hours. I can’t focus on what I am going to do to move forward. You can’t do that in 12 hours.

Kimberly, 53, sold the family home to a “sell for cash” group when her father became ill : I’ve been here a year in December. It’s an every day struggle trying to pay for everything. That’s why I don’t have food. Room, food, bus. I do plasma. It makes you depressed being stuck in this room 24/7.

Brenda, 53, is staying in a room with her cousin and her 19-year-old autistic son : I have more anxiety. I’m unsure of everything. I’m scared only because of my 19-year-old son. It’s hard to get inside the mind of somebody with autism, but I know one thing for certain is that when his schedule gets disrupted, it disrupts him. And then I feel badly. I tell him things are going to be better, but it’s hard. I tried and failed to make a life for myself.

Just six months after Covid-era moratoriums were lifted, eviction filings doubled in Milwaukee County. With rents rising , even two-income families can easily fall into homelessness, where a constant barrage of bills and bureaucratic hurdles keep stable housing out of reach.

Max, 47, has been staying in motel rooms with his wife and their sons for several months : Our rent went up unexpectedly. We had had a yearlong lease but then the landlord made it month to month. We couldn’t suck it up and pay. The rent was $1,400 and the next month went up to $1,900.

Kimberly : My storage alone is $260 a month because it was a house full of things we left — I even threw out two giant dumpsters — it’s all our photo albums and furniture. I’m over $1,000 behind. There’s interest, late fees. I owe the storage place on the 20th and if I don’t pay them it will go to auction. You can’t pay here at the motel and come up with money to get a place. It’s impossible. And that’s why a lot of us are stuck.

Ashley : I owe the storage unit $100 so they locked it. The twins were supposed to go to the pumpkin farm today for a school trip but the kids’ coats and boots are in there. I knew they were going to be outside all day at the pumpkin farm so I kept them at home. It’s expensive being homeless. It’s expensive being outside. I’ve applied to places, but I have an open eviction right now.

David, 63, has been homeless for about two years : I didn’t receive my benefits one month. I was fighting with the QUEST card people. You get a review every few years to keep the benefits going. Well, not living in a permanent place, I don’t receive my mail, so I missed the review. That’s why my benefits were cut off.

how to solve the problem of homelessness

People living day to day in motels often are not counted as homeless by HUD, making it difficult for them to get access to the services put in place to help people experiencing homelessness.

Ashley : I called 211 and told them I was homeless and my situation. One night at 3 in the morning, they called me. They said we’re out and about at the address you gave us but we don’t see your car. I’m like, “Well, tonight we got a room” and they’re like, “Well, that’s not considered homeless. When you go back out to that spot give us a call, maybe we can come back out to that spot.” They can help with housing if they can prove that I’m in my car 24/7. But I can’t keep my kids in my car. If I have to pay for a room I will. But they’re saying, “Because you’re inside a hotel you’re not considered homeless.” This doesn’t make sense to me. I’ve never noticed how many homeless people were out here until I became one.

Scroll to read what people living in cars, encampments and shelters want others to understand about homelessness in America.

What is the biggest stress you deal with in daily life?

David, 63, sleeps in a tent behind a motel in Milwaukee.

Rob Travis Jackson, 59, stays in a shelter in Pennsylvania.

Kala, 32, has been sleeping on the street and in a motel when she can afford it.

Haven, 11, is sleeping on couches with his mom and siblings near Sarasota, Fla.

Sage and Fiona Reuscher and their son have been homeless since May.

how to solve the problem of homelessness

The Reuschers are among the over 19,000 people in Los Angeles living out of their cars.

By Christopher Giamarino Photographs by Ricardo Nagaoka

When Americans lose their housing, their cars are often the first place they turn. The federal government doesn’t collect data specifically on vehicular homelessness, but recent studies show that over 40 percent of unsheltered …

When Americans lose their housing, their cars are often the first place they turn. The federal government doesn’t collect data specifically on vehicular homelessness, but recent studies show that over 40 percent of unsheltered people in Los Angeles County live in their vehicles — cars, vans, campers and R.V.s. The cold reality: Finding a safe place to park is a challenge, made worse by a web of complicated ordinances that in much of the country make sleeping and living in your car illegal , with towing and expensive tickets a constant worry. The Los Angeles area is home to the nation’s largest population of “vehicle dwellers.” One nonprofit, Safe Parking L.A. , has set up in parking lots across Los Angeles in response, allowing people to stay in their cars during the night when businesses are closed, providing amenities like restrooms, security guards and sometimes even financial services and opportunities to find shelters and housing. We spoke with people in one such parking lot, sandwiched between the Los Angeles airport runway and industrial land. The people staying there shared why they’re living in their cars, and what they need to get back into housing.

how to solve the problem of homelessness

Chloe Heard by the car where she sleeps.

An empty parking lot, even one with planes blaring overhead every 90 seconds, provides a degree of safety for people who have been sleeping in their cars on streets and in parks.

Chloe Heard, 36, has been homeless since August 2020 : Before this lot, I was parking by the beach. I was really unsafe. The police were coming to my car, and I was scared. My main concerns were if someone was going to walk up to my car and bust my windows, or if the police were going to arrest me for trespassing. You don’t really rest because you’re constantly jumping up to look around to make sure you’re not going to get in trouble for being there. I’d be getting tickets for parking on streets, sleeping in my car. Sometimes, street sweeping has come before you wake up and you’ve already gotten a ticket before you noticed the person.

B.A., 52, works as a bus driver at the airport and lives out of his car : Living in my car is hard. I don’t have any electricity. I always have to run the car. That’s wasting gas. I feel like I’m not safe wherever I sleep — these lots or wherever I sleep on the street.

Edward Taylor, 47, lives in his car with his husband after they lost their apartment in 2022 : The way that parking on public streets impacted us was just sleep. Being here in a safe zone that is monitored and secluded from what’s happening on the other side of these barricades allows you to get sleep. It allows you to sleep a little bit more peacefully than if I have to worry about other homeless people. Sorry, I forgot I am homeless now.

Curtis Lynch and Edward Taylor

Juana Zabala in the car where she sleeps.

Living out of your car might seem like a good way to save money when you’ve lost your housing, but often, a vicious cycle of bills and bad credit causes a temporary sleeping situation to stretch into a months-long ordeal.

Chloe Heard : How do they expect people facing homelessness to have 700 or 800 credit scores? Or have co-signers? People don’t even trust that you can make it on your own, let alone use someone else’s assistance to get there. How in the heck could someone vouch for you to maybe help ruin their credit?

B.A. : On a big lot like this, they should just let people park there all day and all night. With Safe Parking I don’t like that you have to leave, come back, leave, come back. I want to just leave my car here and then I could just take off somewhere or walk. But instead, I got to drive, waste gas, come back. I spend more money on gas than I spend on anything.

Edward Taylor : I have an income. I have money saved. I tell people I have enough money to pay them three times the deposit. But even right now that is not acceptable because your credit score is not good or you have an eviction on your record.

The longer homelessness stretches on, the harder it is for people experiencing it to recover.

Fiona Reuscher, 43, lives in her car with her partner, Sage, and their teenage son : Once everything is taken from you, it becomes how much more do you have to give up? We’ve had shelters that have said, “We can take you, but we don’t allow dogs.” We’ve already given up everything. You’re not going to take away our best friends. These are our dogs. These are our emotional support animals. These are our protectors. They’re like our kids. You can’t do that. But they expect you to do this. They expect you to give these things up. They expect you to be happy with a doghouse because you’re in your car. No, we want housing. What’s good for you should be good for me. If it’s not good for you then why are you trying to pawn it off on me?

Edward Taylor : I am not grounded in some place to update my résumé and have access to the internet to look for jobs and network. I’m not able to access my full belongings to get into my full self to go out to places to network with people.

Chloe Heard : People think that because you don’t have a home that you’re dirty, you may stink, that you’re crazy for sleeping in a car. I told my friend that I sleep in my car. She said: “You sleep in your car? What’re you talking about?” It makes me refrain from telling people because then they’re looking at me in a judging sense like I’m lesser than. It makes me feel like less of an active citizen in society because people look down on you.

how to solve the problem of homelessness

Fiona and Sage Reuscher prepare their car to sleep for the night.

The people sleeping in the lot have ideas on ways their homelessness could have been prevented, and how aid programs, including the Safe Parking program hosting them, could better meet their needs.

Curtis Lynch, 38, lives in his car with his husband, Edward : The eviction moratorium should have lasted longer. There should have been a proper system in place where the government helped pay during that process — like, pay back 30 percent of what you owe, and your eviction could be withheld. There’s a better system they should have worked with.

Terri Ann Romo, 43, lives in her car with her mom, Juana : It would be nice if you could shower. We went a whole month without showering until recently.

Frankey Daniels, 32, has two jobs and has been homeless since July : Create more housing programs for people who work and are going through homelessness. It takes some time to really figure it out and do your research when you have to go to work, and some people are working two jobs.

B.A . : At the Convention Center, they had plugs. They had bathrooms that you could walk into with a private sink and toilet. They use port-a-potties here. They need to be cleaned out every day.

Fiona Reuscher : Having weekly meetings so that the people who are the decision makers out here talk to us on the lot. We need better transparency. If you’re not talking to the people that you’re serving, then you’re not serving them.

Scroll to read what people living in encampments and shelters want others to understand about homelessness in America.

Do you think the government, or either political party, is doing enough to help you?

David, 62, with his partner, Terri. He uses a wheelchair and sleeps in a tent in Nashville.

Chloe Heard, 36, has been homeless since 2020.

Bobby Conner Jr., 29, lives in an encampment in Nashville.

how to solve the problem of homelessness

Tyrese Payeton has been living in an encampment for several months.

how to solve the problem of homelessness

He is one of hundreds of people living in tents and other temporary shelters in Nashville.

By Wes Enzinna Photographs by Tamara Reynolds

Less than a mile from Nashville’s bustling tourist district, the Old Tent City homeless encampment lies in a forest hidden between the banks of the Cumberland River and the shadow of a steep, dusty bluff. At the top of the bluff …

Less than a mile from Nashville’s bustling tourist district, the Old Tent City homeless encampment lies in a forest hidden between the banks of the Cumberland River and the shadow of a steep, dusty bluff. At the top of the bluff is a new condominium building where two-bedroom units with panoramic views of the downtown skyline sell for $1.2 million. The sprawling shantytown below is home to dozens of people who live in tents and makeshift abodes — the winners and the losers of the new Nashville economy live in one another's shadows. Tent cities, which often include other shelters like wooden sheds and R.V.s, have become a common feature in the landscape of American cities. In Nashville, one of the fastest-growing metro areas in the United States, 17 percent of people who are homeless are living on the streets and in encampments. According to service providers, there are dozens of encampments spread out across the city and the surrounding county. The people living in them often aren’t included in decisions over their fates, even as the city has made closing the camps a key part of its larger fight against homelessness for the last year. We spoke to residents of Old Tent City and four other encampments in Nashville. Most of them want to be off the streets. All of them want a system that better supports them.

how to solve the problem of homelessness

Wade in his “tiny home,” a temporary shelter the size of a shed.

Some people who live in encampments worry about their safety, while others say they provide a sense of community and security hard to find elsewhere on the street.

Fred Moore , 57, has been homeless for about 12 years : I love the homeless people that’s out here. Most of them that’s new don’t know how to live being homeless. There are so many different tricks and ways around it that people just don’t know how and when you got somebody that’s already been out here, they know the ways to do things and help pass information.

Cynthia Gaddis, 35, ended up on the streets several months ago : I’ve learned you can depend more on the homeless people than you can with the people that have everything.

Bobby Conner Jr., 29, who has been homeless since he was 13, was struggling with addiction when he arrived in Old Tent City : Any time I ever need a place to come, just lay low and just crash, and need a family, I know I can always come down here. When I came down here, I looked at them, I was like: “I want off of that. I want to start my life new again . ” They were like: “You really want to do it? You’re more than welcome to bring your stuff down here. Set up your spot. We’ll make sure you stay off of it.”

Casey Guzak, 47 , became homeless two years ago after a rent increase : I don’t think Hoovertowns are appropriate unless there’s a major depression. Shantytowns accumulate hostility, disease, and everyone’s calamity is amplified.

But even as encampments provide stability to some residents, the unique challenges — financial, mental, physical — of living there can also make it harder for residents to eventually find their way out of the camps and back into housing.

New York is an Army veteran living in a tent in Old Tent City : I can afford to pay the rent. I just can’t afford the deposit. And being out here kind of messed up my credit. But now I’m paying three credit fixers to fix my credit. Nobody in my family knows I’m out here. I’m too embarrassed to reach out and say something because they’ve never seen me. When I was out there, I had an apartment and a house and had two cars. I was making good money. So it’s a pride thing.

Terri Masterson and her partner lost their home of 23 years just miles away from where they stay on the street now : I am ashamed of it. I’m ashamed that I’m ashamed, but I truly am. You know, I am an old-fashioned girl. This is not how I was raised, as my grandmother would say.

Fred Moore : It’s hard for me to hold down a job because I can’t concentrate on what I’m doing. I’ve been down here trying to get signed up on disability and try to give my brain time to rest and really see what’s going on.

Jacquelyn Manner, 61, lost her job and her home after a debilitating brain injury : I’m a pretty healthy person, but I’m also 61. I can’t eat a lot of the stuff that they have out there. I need fresh vegetables. I have food stamps, but I didn’t have a place that I could eat fresh vegetables and yogurt. It’s going to be pasta, rice. A lot of sugar and a lot of salt. It creates health problems.

Riley, 23, moved into an encampment to try to save money : I was living in a motel. I was making $600 a week doing day labor, and the motel was so expensive. I had the idea: I'll come out here and I’ll stack some money up for a few weeks. Thought I’d be able to get back up on my feet in no time. I had to be at the day-labor office at five in the morning, so I was buying Ubers, spending like 40 bucks in the morning. And then I’m getting off work at rush hour. And the prices go up. I’m spending another $30 to get home. It’s 70 bucks. I made $125 a day, so I got 55 bucks left. I got to eat, so I bought a camp stove. I just stopped going to work after three months.

Casey Guzak

Brandi and her boyfriend, Robert.

According to one nonprofit group, over the last two years at least 25 encampments in Nashville have been cleared. In July 2022, Tennessee became the first state ever to make camping on public property a felony . So far, no one has been prosecuted under the law, but numerous encampment residents say that the police have invoked it to intimidate them.

Casey Guzak : They use the landscapers to cut trees around you, expose you. Then they tell you you need to get everything in your tent — there’s too much stuff out here, too much litter. I agree! But they take your tent when you’re not there. They figure if you’re exposed, you’ll be embarrassed. We weren’t. We just sat there. You know, who are we going to be embarrassed by? Their message is, “We got to clear this place out for gentrification . ” It’s about to happen here. It’s happening all over Nashville. It’s like a war.

Wade lives in a 60-square-foot shed in an encampment in the backyard of a church : When I was homeless, and I mean homeless — no housing, no nothing, bushes and trees right behind me — the police, they say, “Oh, you can’t sleep here.” And you’re sitting there saying, “But that ain’t fair.” They don't care. If you’re not doing anything and you’re not causing any disturbance why come over and harass you? They’re not doing what the police are supposed to do. They’re supposed to protect and serve.

C.J . has lived in an encampment for four years and worries he and his fellow residents will be evicted soon : All you’re going to do is bust up a nest, and that nest is going to spread out somewhere else. When you bust it up, the ones that are scattered are going to find somewhere else and then you got another problem. … I’m going to go to another area, find another spot, set up another camp and start the process all over again.

The people living in tent cities want to have a say in the policies that affect them.

Jacquelyn Manner : I need to get permanent shelter and I need to get a good job. And I can’t do that unless I have an outfit. Unless I have a place that I can shower. Unless I can have a place where I can keep my clothes decent, and know that I can wear some decent clothes to work.

Clyde Hohn, 52, and his wife, Norvalla, have been residents of Old Tent City for about a month : We should have security guards in the encampments. We got people firing off firearms. Somebody ran a knife through my tent. There are noises all night, people arguing. A security guard would help us keep safe, help us sleep so we can go to work in the morning and get ourselves off the street. She’s a cashier at a gas station. It’d be a lot worse if she lost her job.

Mama V : A goal of ours is to find the land and make it where the homeless can have somewhere and nobody can tell them, “Hey, you’ve got to go.” I tell everybody, you never know when you're going to be one paycheck away from where we’re at right now.

how to solve the problem of homelessness

Jacquelyn Manner in front of the tiny home where she sleeps.

Scroll to read what people living in shelters want others to understand about homelessness in America.

Could the government have done anything to prevent your homelessness?

Terri Ann Romo, 43, lost stable housing after an eviction in 2022.

Clyde Hohn, 52, lives in an encampment and hasn’t had stable housing since 2022.

Fiona Reuscher, 43, fell into homelessness after a workplace injury and layoff.

Cynthia Gaddis, 35, lives in an encampment in Nashville.

how to solve the problem of homelessness

Levon Higgins lost his housing after expensive surgery. He lives in a shelter, sharing a room with dozens of men.

how to solve the problem of homelessness

Every night, some 445,000 Americans stay in shelters like the one where he sleeps.

By Matthew Desmond Photographs by Adam Pape

The shelter comes after it all. After the pawnship and plasma donation. After the diagnosis, the divorce, the eviction, the relapse. After the final family member …

The shelter comes after it all. After the pawnship and plasma donation. After the diagnosis, the divorce, the eviction, the relapse. After the final family member says no. Emergency shelters provide a place to sleep — even if only a mat on a floor — and meals. At some, you can get clean socks, a haircut, a tooth pulled, even therapy. The shelter represents the last stop from the bottom, a bulwark from the street, but it can also represent a chance: to leave your abuser, to earn your G.E.D., to make a new start. Homelessness is highest in cities with exorbitant rents, but small cities and rural communities are not shielded from the housing crisis. Some small towns have eviction rates that rival those of big cities. Because rural America lacks many social services, like free clinics, soup kitchens and shelters, the rural homeless often make their way to places like the Water Street Mission . A Christian rescue mission in Lancaster, Pa., a city of roughly 57,000, it has been serving the hungry and homeless since 1917. We spoke with several people staying at the Water Street Mission, some of whom were there for the first time and some who had sought refuge there many times before.

how to solve the problem of homelessness

James Costello

Because there is no single agency or governmental organization that oversees America’s shelter system, shelters can vary as much in funding — some private, some religious, some public — as in the kinds of services and amenities they offer.

James Costello, 58, lost a leg to diabetes complications, then his job and housing soon after : When I first came here, we were sleeping on the chapel floor here on “boats.” They were like hard things, maybe about a foot high. And you threw a mat on it and that was what we slept on. And they said: “This is not good for the people. They’re losing dignity.” That’s the one thing here. They want you to have dignity; you’ve lost everything else. So they don’t want to take that from you either. Yeah, you’re in your room with 45 other guys, but you still feel like a person. You don’t feel like cattle being shoved in and shoved out of a room.

Tamekia Gibbs, 48, arrived at Water Street after surviving domestic violence : Knowing that you have a place to lay your head and knowing you’ll have food in your mouth, that’s a good thing. It’s everything else that comes along with it, especially if you’ve never been in that predicament — sleeping in a room full of women, you just never know how strange, how stressful that is. You have to get used to different things. You got to get used to having to get used to it.

Shawna, 44, is recovering from an addiction and has been in and out of homelessness for over a decade : You don’t have to go, “Well, why are they throwing God in my face all the time?” Just sit down, listen. Maybe that lesson was meant for you and that’s why you’re getting mad. I just go, I listen. If it’s for me, I sit and listen. If not, I play with something on my phone.

The resources dedicated to helping people who have lost stable housing in rural communities are more limited, but the causes are often the same as in major cities.

Levon Higgins, 50, has been staying at Water Street for the last six months : I just couldn’t afford to live where I was. Rent went up to $1,500 a month. For a two-bedroom. I just couldn’t do it. When the pandemic first started, I had a savings account, had a SIMPLE I.R.A. Over the past year, things just got worse. Your rent just keeps going up and going up and going up.

Shawna : This is my fifth or sixth time back. This time I decided to come back just so I could get away from my drug of choice and being out on the street and not feeling safe. My daughter came here after me. This would be her second time back with my grandbabies. We stayed here a couple of times together when it was just me and her. It’s just like I’m reliving everything over again. I know something has to change.

Tamekia Gibbs : I endured a lot of physical, emotional and mental abuse. I just got to the point where I lost me completely in that relationship. I said: “This is enough. I got to find somewhere else to go.” So when I did that, of course, it got physical because they didn't want me to leave. I had my son come get me and I took what I could carry. And I’ve been homeless ever since.

Tamekia Gibbs

Rob Travis Jackson

Securing a spot in a shelter isn’t always straightforward: There are far fewer beds available than people who need them . And for those who get in, adjusting to life in the shelter is its own process.

Evelyn, 39, is a mother of two staying in the family section of the mission : When I first got here, I was so mad, so angry, so hurt that I was even put in this position. To be a single mom and have two kids and be out on the streets, it’s very worrisome because they tell you if you don’t have a place, then C.Y.S. [Children and Youth Services] can take your children. Even going to them for help it was like: “Well, if you don't have a place, then we can’t do anything for you. But legally we can take your children.” And it was like: “No, I don’t think so. You’re not taking my children.” So I was scurrying around trying to find shelter for them.

Jennifer Berrie, 45, was staying in an overnight-only shelter before Water Street : I miss little things you don't even think of. People complain like I used to about cooking, but then you can’t do it for a while and you miss it. Going to bed when you want, not having a curfew, just, you know, living your life. The freedom.

Tamekia Gibbs : There are the ladies that are talking about each other. They’re just doing a lot of backbiting, and when you have that in a community, it causes a lot of friction and tension. I try to stay away from it, I hunker down, do what I’m supposed to in my classes. I stay busy. I tell the ladies: “I came here broken. If I can do it, you can do it.”

In addition to addressing the housing crisis and deepening investments in mental health and drug treatment services, the residents of Water Street believe it is critical to treat people in their situation with dignity and empathy.

James Costello : This is a human condition. Humans have to solve it. Politics can't do that. And that’s the main problem. With the government it is not going to happen. They’re always going to be wanting money. “Where are we going to get the biggest buck?” And as long as that goes on, this problem is going to get worse.

Rob Travis Jackson, 59, became homeless after a financially draining divorce : It’s a little scary to think about what life might be like for any of us after we leave Water Street. If you’re here for a year, you’ve had three meals and three hot meals available through the seasons of the year. And what does my life look like after I leave?

Levon Higgins : Some people who come across hard times, it’s because they maybe lost a job or some mental issues that happened. But that’s not how the world sees it. When they see, they automatically assume: “He’s a drug addict. He’s an alcoholic. They don't want to work. They don't want to do nothing.” And that can’t be further from the truth. They just want some help. People get scared to ask for help because they’ve been denied so many times.

how to solve the problem of homelessness

Scroll to read what people who are living through homelessness actually want.

If you were in charge, what would you do to stop homelessness?

Clyde Hohn, 52, lives in an encampment in Nashville.

Layla, 9, a fourth grader who is navigating homelessness with her mom and three siblings.

Frankey Daniels, 32, lives out of his car in Los Angeles, where he also works two jobs.

Tamekia Gibbs, 48, hasn’t had stable housing since 2016.

We kept in touch with some of the people we met through our reporting. During the months of producing this project, we heard about their triumphs and their setbacks. Fred Moore was on the verge of receiving Section 8 housing when we met him in Nashville. After 12 years of homelessness, he moved in last September. “I’m still not adjusted to it. I’m like a baby in a crib. It seems easier, but really it’s a lot harder,” he said recently. “At the apartment, I get cabin fever staying in it so much. I miss being outside a lot because you get fresh air. It gets summer time, I might throw up a tent around town and stay there a few days out of the week. It’s hard to pull away from this kind of life, being homeless.”

In October, after Mr. Moore moved into his apartment, the encampment where he had lived was razed by the city. That same month, Nashville provided transitional or permanent housing to 191 people who were once on the street— and 373 people became newly unhoused.

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Why can't we stop homelessness? 4 reasons why there's no end in sight

Jennifer Ludden at NPR headquarters in Washington, D.C., September 27, 2018. (photo by Allison Shelley)

Jennifer Ludden

how to solve the problem of homelessness

A man carries a sleeping bag at a homeless encampment in Portland, Maine, in May, before city workers arrived to clean the area. State officials say a lack of affordable housing is behind a sharp rise in chronic homelessness. Robert F. Bukaty/AP hide caption

A man carries a sleeping bag at a homeless encampment in Portland, Maine, in May, before city workers arrived to clean the area. State officials say a lack of affordable housing is behind a sharp rise in chronic homelessness.

When Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass campaigned last year on reining in homelessness, she laid out bold proposals with a budget of hundreds of millions of dollars. In April, she told NPR she hoped for a "very significant reduction" this year, especially of people living on the street. But on Monday , Bass said it's become clear that there's simply no end in sight.

"We really need to normalize the fact, unfortunately, that we're living in a crisis," she said at a press conference announcing a renewal of her emergency declaration on homelessness.

The shift in tone comes after both LA and New York City recently declared a record level of homelessness, and other cities have also seen their numbers continue to climb despite considerable attention and spending to give people shelter. It's part of a steady rise around the country since 2016, after years of successfully driving down the number of people without housing.

So what's going on? Advocacy groups and researchers say a big driving force is the decline of affordable housing, a problem decades in the making but one that has grown significantly worse in the past few years. Here are a few ways it's playing out.

1. More people than ever are being housed — but an even higher number are falling into homelessness

About a third of the U.S. homeless population is in California, and the state faces mounting questions about why billions of dollars spent in recent years hasn't reduced the number of people living in cars and encampments. A bipartisan group of lawmakers has asked the state auditor to investigate . A key program in Los Angeles to move people from hotels into permanent housing appears to be struggling .

CalMatters reports that officials across the state are asking how they can do better, even traveling to Texas for guidance.

And yet, those in California and other places around the country can also argue they are helping more people than ever. The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority says it has placed more than 20,000 into permanent housing for five years in a row — a significant boost from a decade ago — and that it's doing this faster than it has in the past. Nationally over that time, the inventory of permanent housing available has increased 26% — and it's more than doubled since 2007.

"We've done a lot" to improve how people are placed into housing, says Steve Berg, chief policy officer at the National Alliance to End Homelessness. But he says that's only half the equation. "The other half is people losing their housing ... and we have not had any kind of extensive or organized effort on that," he says.

The upshot is that, in Los Angeles and elsewhere, even as record numbers of people are being housed, a greater number of them are falling into homelessness.

Jordan Neely's Killing Turns Spotlight On New York's Crisis Of Homelessness

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Jordan neely's killing turns spotlight on new york's crisis of homelessness.

Berg says one key reason is that only 1 in 4 Americans who qualify for a federal housing subsidy actually get it, and that's been the case since he was in law school decades ago. The vast majority of low-income renters must rely on market-rate housing, but the U.S. hasn't built enough housing for more than a decade, since the market crash of 2008. And the shortage is most acute for the lowest income renters — by more than 7 million units , according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition.

That tight market, combined with the worst inflation in a generation last year, has led to double-digit rent spikes in many places around the U.S.

2. Rents are out of reach for many, and millions of affordable places have disappeared

A landmark new report surveyed thousands of people in California about how they came to be without housing, and researchers conducted in-depth interviews with hundreds of them. For most, high rental costs were crucial.

"People just ran out of the ability to pay, whether it happened quickly or slowly," says lead investigator Margot Kushel of the University of California, San Francisco.

Some said they'd had their work hours cut. Others lost a job because of a health crisis. Many crowded in with relatives or friends, who were also likely to be poor and struggling. "And we found that those relationships, when they fell apart, fell apart quickly," Kushel says. "People only had one day's warning" to leave. Even those with their own lease had on average just 10 days to move out.

More renters facing eviction have a right to a lawyer. Finding one can be hard

More renters facing eviction have a right to a lawyer. Finding one can be hard

Their median monthly household income in the six months before they became homeless was $960, she says. The median rent for a one-bedroom apartment in California is $1,700. Around the country, Kushel says, homelessness rates are highest in places where there is both poverty and high housing costs.

That gap has been growing for decades, as rents have risen faster than wages. Nationally last year, the share of renters spending at least 30% or 50% of their income on housing reached a record high . And some markets have seen a major share of their low-cost rentals disappear.

Over the past decade, the number of rentals under $600 fell by nearly 4 million , according to an analysis by Harvard's Joint Center for Housing Studies. The losses happened in every state, because either rents increased, the units were taken off the rental market or buildings were condemned and demolished. Among slightly higher priced rentals, up to $1,000 a month, some 2.5 million more units were lost.

Even with inflation cooling, rents remain too high for many — and are continuing to increase in some places.

3. Zoning laws and local opposition make it hard to build housing for low-income renters

Voters around the country approved spending for more affordable housing last year, and a record number of apartments are under construction. More places are also loosening zoning laws — some of which date back to segregation — to allow more multifamily buildings in residential neighborhoods. Housing experts say all this is needed to help ease the tight market and bring down prices over time.

The U.S. needs more affordable housing — where to put it is a bigger battle

The U.S. needs more affordable housing — where to put it is a bigger battle

With a shortage in the millions of units, though, that could take a very long time. And in most places it's still a major challenge to build affordable housing. "Neighbors will say, 'We don't want low-income people living here,' and they'll stop the housing from being built," says Berg, with the National Alliance to End Homelessness.

Even housing that does get built and is billed as affordable, he says, isn't always cheap enough for those who need it most. "It's really about having enough deeply affordable housing so that people with the lowest incomes can move into the housing," Berg says. "And if they lose that housing, they can find another place to live."

4. Pandemic aid programs that helped keep many people housed are winding down

An annual count last year did find a pause in the relentless rise of homelessness. Biden administration officials, among others, credit the sweeping array of pandemic aid programs that limited evictions, helped people pay rent and boosted other financial supports. Princeton's Eviction Lab calculates such policies cut eviction filings in half.

Those programs have largely ended in many places and are winding down in others. Beyond having to pay current rent, it means some people also may be expected to pay down rental debt that accumulated during the COVID-19 emergency. Many link the end of such protections to a recent rise in evictions , well above pre-pandemic levels in some places.

Of course, there are other reasons. Some 19% of those surveyed in the UCSF study became homeless after leaving institutions such as prison, and finding employment and housing with a criminal record is difficult. Advocates say there's also need for more addiction and mental health treatment, though it's most effective once someone is safely housed.

But again, the overriding problem, they say, is the dire lack of places low-income people can afford to live.

"There's really no way to solve homelessness without seriously addressing this," says Kushel, the UCSF researcher. "Otherwise, we're going to be compelled to continue to spend huge amounts of money managing an increasingly out of control crisis."

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How far can cities go to clear homeless camps? The U.S. Supreme Court will decide

A man named Frank sits in his tent with a river view in Portland, Ore., in 2021. A lawsuit originally filed in 2018 on behalf of homeless people in the Oregon city of Grants Pass is set to go before the U.S. Supreme Court in April.

In April, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear a major case that could reshape how cities manage homelessness. The legal issue is whether they can fine or arrest people for sleeping outside if there's no shelter available. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has deemed this cruel and unusual punishment, and this case is a pivotal challenge to that ruling.

The high court declined to take up a similar case in 2019. But since then, homelessness rates have climbed relentlessly. Street encampments have grown larger and have expanded to new places, igniting intense backlash from residents and businesses. Homelessness and the lack of affordable housing that's helping to drive it have become key issues for many voters.

The case, Grants Pass v. Johnson , could have dramatic implications for the record number of people living in tents and cars across the United States.

An Oregon town banned camping and the use of sleeping bags and stoves on public property

In the small city of Grants Pass, Ore. , homeless people say the city broke the law when it aggressively tried to push them out over the past decade. To discourage people from sleeping in public spaces, the city banned the use of stoves and sleeping bags or other bedding. But during several years when she had lost housing, Helen Cruz says she needed to live in city parks because they're close to the jobs she had cleaning houses.

"We're not out there because we want to be," she says. "We don't have a choice. There's no place to go."

Grants Pass has no homeless shelter that's open to everyone. A religious mission takes in a few who agree to attend services. That left Cruz racking up thousands of dollars in fines, which she remains unable to pay.

"And I keep getting mail from Josephine County court saying, 'You owe this. If you don't pay this, it's going to collections,'" she says, "which has destroyed my credit."

A lawsuit originally filed in 2018 on behalf of homeless people in Grants Pass said the situation there was part of a larger crisis, as homelessness rates around the U.S. were high and growing. It accused the city of trying to "punish people based on their status of being involuntarily homeless." The 9th Circuit agreed, saying the city could not ban people from sleeping outside with "rudimentary protection from the elements" when there was nowhere else for them to go.

The same appeals court also sided with homeless people in a landmark 2018 case out of Boise, Idaho, which the Supreme Court later declined to take up.

Critics say the Grants Pass ruling is a major expansion over the Boise one, since it forbids not just criminal penalties but civil ones. Advocates for homeless people don't see much difference, since some in Grants Pass who couldn't pay their fines were eventually jailed.

Grants Pass petitioned the Supreme Court. And its appeal has drawn support from dozens of local and state officials across the West and elsewhere who urged the justices to take this case. Among those filing such friend-of-the-court briefs are Republican -led states like Idaho, Montana and Nebraska and Democratic-led cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco, plus a separate brief from California Gov. Gavin Newsom .

Officials say the law has paralyzed their efforts to manage a public safety crisis

States and cities contend these rulings have contributed to the growth of tent encampments.

"These decisions are legally wrong and have tied the hands of local governments as they work to address the urgent homelessness crisis," Theane Evangelis, the attorney representing Grants Pass , said in a statement. "The tragedy is that these decisions are actually harming the very people they purport to protect."

Evangelis and others say sprawling tent camps pose a threat to public health and safety. Those living in them often face theft or assault and are at risk of being hit by passing vehicles. And they note that encampments have led to fires, disease, environmental hazards and high numbers of people overdosing on drugs and dying on public streets.

"It's just gone too far," California Gov. Gavin Newsom said last year at a Politico event in Sacramento. "People's lives are at risk. It's unacceptable what's happening on the streets and sidewalks. Compassion is not stepping over people on the streets."

Critics also say the 9th Circuit's rulings are ambiguous and have been interpreted too broadly, making them unworkable in practice.

"We need to have clarity," says Seattle City Attorney Ann Davison, who wrote a legal brief on behalf of more than a dozen other cities plus the National League of Cities.

For example, what exactly constitutes adequate shelter? And what about when a bed is open, but someone refuses to go? Local officials say that this happens a lot, and some acknowledge that people might have good reasons to not want to go to a shelter. Yet Davison says court rulings essentially require cities to build enough shelter for every person without housing, something many places can't possibly afford.

They also argue that homelessness is a complex problem that requires balancing competing interests, something local officials are better equipped to do than the courts.

"We are trying to show there's respect for the public areas that we all need to have," Davison says. "And we care for people, and we're engaging and being involved in the long-term solution for them."

Advocates say punishing homeless people won't solve the problem

Attorneys and advocates for the homeless plaintiffs argue that the 9th Circuit rulings are far narrower and less restrictive than cities claim.

"It's interesting to me that the people in power have thrown up their hands and said, 'There's nothing we can do, and the only solution we can think of is to arrest people,'" says Jesse Rabinowitz of the National Homelessness Law Center. "That's simply not true."

He and others say the rulings do allow cities to regulate encampments. They can limit the time and place for them, ban the use of tents, even clear them out. And plenty of cities do that, though they often face lawsuits over the details of what's allowed.

Grants Pass did what's not allowed, which is ban camps everywhere all the time, says Ed Johnson of the Oregon Law Center, which represents those suing the city. He says that would basically make it illegal for people to exist.

"It's sort of the bare minimum in what a just society should expect, is that you're not going to punish someone for something they have no ability to control," he says.

The reason they can't control being homeless, Johnson says, is because Grants Pass — like so many cities around the U.S. — has a severe housing shortage and unaffordable rents. He says that cities are blaming the courts for decades of failed housing policies and that fining and jailing people only makes the problem worse.

"When we criminalize people, we know it impacts their ability to get a job," says Ann Oliva, CEO of the National Alliance to End Homelessness. "It impacts their ability to get housing in the long run if they have a criminal record."

Some cities that side with Grants Pass say they have invested heavily to create more affordable housing, even as homelessness rates keep going up. That's a long-term challenge they'll still face, whatever the Supreme Court decides.

how to solve the problem of homelessness

Tribune News Service

Commentary: How to solve our soaring homelessness problem

H omelessness set two records in 2023. The increase in homelessness between 2022 and 2023 was the largest ever recorded since the government began collecting data in 2007. That brought the number of Americans living in homeless shelters and on the streets to an all- time high .

The problem is neither new nor local. Homelessness has been rising for several years. Last year, it increased in all but nine states, with New York topping the list. New York City Mayor Eric Adams recently announced that the city’s homeless shelters are out of room due to soaring illegal immigration .

Evidence of the accompanying social decay can be found coast to coast: in Portland streets littered with hypodermic needles and other waste, on San Francisco sidewalks covered with human feces and tent encampments , and with increasing numbers of people languishing on the streets of Los Angeles.

Some unique factors contributed to the jump in homelessness in 2023, but policies to address homelessness have been off track for a long time. For two decades, the federal government has taken a “housing first” approach to homelessness, focusing on “permanent supportive housing” with low or no barriers to entry.

This means providing permanent housing without any conditions, such as meeting sobriety requirements, participating in drug treatment, engaging in mental health counseling or participating in job training. The idea is that giving a person housing will solve homelessness.

But housing first has failed on several counts.

While it increases the likelihood that an individual remains housed—at least for the people who receive permanent housing—housing first fails to reduce overall rates of homelessness or to improve other outcomes of well-being. Indeed, some places that have increased their supply of permanent supportive housing have seen homelessness grow.

For example, between 2010 and 2019 California increased its number of permanent supportive housing units by 25,000, but the number of unsheltered homeless people in the state increased by 50% .

How can this be? Some people may stay in permanent supportive housing longer than they would have remained homeless , occupying units that would otherwise be available for others. Others may migrate to an area that offers permanent supportive housing.

Housing first may also incentivize people to remain homeless longer in order to receive free housing. Whatever the reasons, Kevin Corinth of the American Enterprise Institute estimates it takes 10 permanent supportive housing units to reduce homelessness by just one person.

Housing first is also expensive. A housing-first project in Los Angeles has cost the city $690,000 per unit .

Prioritizing housing first also means that programs requiring treatment or behavioral change are penalized, even though “treatment-first” approaches are more successful at improving the well-being of homeless people by reducing drug use and increasing employment stability. By focusing on helping people move forward in their lives, treatment-first programs can ultimately serve more people too, since they are not designed to keep people in government-funded housing permanently.

The Birmingham Model is an example of a successful treatment-first program. It combines housing with treatment, providing people with a private unit while requiring recipients to abstain from substance abuse. Those who fail to remain sober are moved to a spot in a shelter; they can work toward regaining the private unit by staying sober for a week.

The federal government should stop prioritizing the costly and inefficient housing-first approach. Instead, funding for programs addressing homelessness should be tied to improved outcomes, such as reduced substance abuse, better mental health, moving people into self-supported housing, and reducing overall rates of homelessness. Approaches to helping the homeless will vary based on the individual.

Many people living on the street are dealing with severe mental illness. States should work to improve their mental health care systems and to increase the number of hospital beds available for the severely mentally ill. These beds are in very short supply.

Some cities have programs to provide short-term rental assistance to those facing eviction, along with services to help people find a job. This may help prevent homelessness in the first place.

Local leaders could work with nonprofit organizations to see that emergency and short-term shelters are available for those in crisis. At the same time, cities should maintain order on the streets by ensuring that public areas are free from tent encampments and that laws against illegal drug use and theft are enforced.

Helping the homeless should focus on addressing the underlying causes, rather than continuing to fixate on symptoms. Policies to help our brothers and sisters should promote wellness and upward mobility to help people find their way home.

Rachel Sheffield is a Research Fellow in Welfare and Family Policy at The Heritage Foundation.

©2024 Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

A homeless person lies against a mural of the Golden Gate Bridge near APEC Summit headquarters on Nov. 11, 2023, in downtown San Francisco.

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Editorial: Here’s how Los Angeles can help prevent people from falling into homelessness

A tenant, left, and an outreach worker from We Are Los Angeles

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There’s no question that Los Angeles needs more permanent housing for people who are already homeless. That is the city’s and county’s main responsibility and should receive the most funding from resources dedicated to ending homelessness. But without more homelessness prevention, waves of people will continue to end up on the streets, replacing those who move into housing and leaving Los Angeles always a step behind in grappling with this crisis.

It is imperative to catch people before they fall into homelessness. Even as L.A. County has made more than 20,000 permanent housing placements annually from 2020 to 2022, the unhoused population has gone up steadily from 52,765 in 2018 to 75,518 in 2023.

Los Angeles, CA - February 16: Mayor Karen Bass, left, chats with Jawonna Smith, 33, who lives in a tent on sidewalk behind Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, before she was moved to a motel under "Inside Safe" program on Thursday, Feb. 16, 2023 in Los Angeles, CA. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)

Editorial: Bass had a strong first year on homelessness. Year 2, L.A. needs more housing

She has moved at an impressively fast pace to get homeless people off the streets and fast-track affordable housing. But there’s still so much more to do.

Dec. 18, 2023

“Prevention is the thing that will change the face of homelessness in this county,” said Cheri Todoroff, the executive director of the L.A. County Homeless Initiative. She recently said that if the flow of people into homelessness could be prevented, the county could solve homelessness in three years. Yet programs to help people stay housed are underfunded, scattered across different agencies and difficult to access. That’s a problem.

Numerous programs provide rental subsidies to help people keep their housing. In Los Angeles County, the Department of Mental Health, Department of Children and Family Services, Department of Public Social Services and the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority all offer some sort of homelessness prevention programs. Officials estimate that these programs prevented 31,570 L.A. County residents from becoming homeless between July 2017 and September 2023.

VENICE, CA - APRIL 16, 2021 - - Bicyclists ride past several homeless tents along the bike path in Venice on April 16, 2021. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

Not every life is a ‘success story.’ Some land in homelessness. But everyone deserves dignity

I often hear from my unhoused neighbors that their needs are not complex. Even a modest monthly check would be transformative for many.

Jan. 28, 2024

There are other programs as well. The city of L.A. set aside $30 million from Measure ULA, the tax on real estate transactions over $5 million for an emergency renters assistance program . Thousands of tenants applied in the fall and most are still waiting to hear if they have been approved.

The homelessness prevention efforts will be put to the test this month when the last eviction protections in the city expired and landlords were allowed to proceed with evictions against tenants for unpaid rent incurred between Oct. 1, 2021, and Jan. 31, 2023. A University of Pennsylvania study on rental debt in the city of L.A. estimated that 60% of the 100,000 to 150,000 households behind on rent as of last August wouldn’t be able to pay back rent by the Feb. 1 deadline.

Eviction protections appear to help. Homelessness did go up in 2022, but only by 4%, a fraction of the 12.7% increase found in the January 2020 annual homeless count. Officials attribute that to the pandemic-era eviction moratorium.

LOS ANGELES, CA-APRIL 14, 2023: A homeless encampment is located on the east side of San Vicente Blvd. just south of the Beverly Center in the city of Los Angeles. (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)

Opinion: Homeless, when you just can’t afford the rent

Jermaine, Jason and John all landed on the streets when they were squeezed between high housing costs and low incomes. What could have kept them in their homes?

July 23, 2023

As the Measure ULA fund grows, so should the amount set aside for renter assistance. But eviction protection is not the universe of homelessness prevention. In fact, most people in California on the verge of homelessness are not even leaseholders — the people whom eviction defense and assistance is geared toward.

According to the California Statewide Study of People Experiencing Homelessness released in 2023, barely a third of people surveyed who lost their housing were leaseholders. Nearly half were people who lived in housing but didn’t hold the lease. And 19% came from an institutional setting such as a prison or jail. That shows why L.A. needs a broad array of prevention programs, including rental subsidies and guidance in finding housing after leaving prison or the foster care system.

Many of the people surveyed didn’t even know about rental assistance programs. They were more likely to seek help from friends or family, not government agencies or nonprofits.

That’s all the more reason that city and county officials must publicize and promote the availability of assistance. An estimated 500,000 tenants in the county are severely burdened by rent, meaning they spend half their income on housing. Most will not lose their housing, but it’s both compassionate and cost-effective to help those who are alarmingly close to falling into homelessness. It’s less expensive to keep someone in housing with temporary monthly subsidies, some less than $500, than to put them up in interim housing that costs several thousands of dollars per month.

Policy experts have ideas to improve outreach. The homelessness study authors recommend providing prevention services at various agencies and offices where people go for social services, healthcare or domestic violence services, for example. Or agencies could proactively reach out to people identified as at high risk of losing their housing, Janey Rountree, executive director of the California Policy Lab at UCLA, suggested. Rountree helped develop a computer model that pinpoints users of L.A. County services who may be most vulnerable to falling into homelessness. The county’s Homeless Prevention Unit uses the model to find and reach out to them.

We know how to solve homelessness — with housing. Helping people stay in their homes is one of the best ways to end this crisis. Prevention is difficult work but it’s essential.

More to Read

MARINA DEL REY, CA - MAY 24, 2022 - - A line of campers make up the Balloon Creek homeless encampment along Jefferson Boulevard in Marina Del Rey on May 24, 2023. A new LAPD report links RV encampments with increased crime in the surrounding areas and mentions the Ballona Creek encampment as problematic. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

A year ago, L.A. County declared homelessness a state of emergency. Is it working?

Feb. 14, 2024

LOS ANGELES, CA - FEBRUARY 01: A for rent sign is posted in front of an apartment building on February 1, 2017 in Los Angeles, California. According to the Consumer Price Index, rental prices in Southern California have spiked 4.7 percent in 2016 compared to 3.9 percent in 2015. The increase is the fastest since 2007. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images) ** OUTS - ELSENT, FPG, CM - OUTS * NM, PH, VA if sourced by CT, LA or MoD ** ** OUTS - ELSENT, FPG, CM - OUTS * NM, PH, VA if sourced by CT, LA or MoD **

Opinion: Renting in L.A. could go from bad to worse

Feb. 13, 2024

LOS ANGELES, CA - JANUARY 18: Bianca Lopez, 25, an outreach worker with We Are Los Angeles, a project of the Mayor's Fund for Los Angeles, drops of flyers at an apartment complex on Thursday, Jan. 18, 2024 in Los Angeles, CA. The Mayor's Fund for Los Angeles, a nonprofit closely associated with City Hall, shifted its focus last year to preventing homelessness through preventing evictions. Outreach workers who visit neighborhoods across Los Angeles where tenants are at risk of eviction and seek to connect those tenants with information and resources to help them keep their homes. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)

At risk of eviction in L.A.? These outreach workers are looking for you

Feb. 9, 2024

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how to solve the problem of homelessness

How far can cities go to clear homeless camps? The U.S. Supreme Court will decide

A man named Frank sits in his tent with a river view in Portland, Ore., in 2021. A lawsuit originally filed in 2018 on behalf of homeless people in the Oregon city of Grants Pass is set to go before the U.S. Supreme Court in April.

In April, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear a major case that could reshape how cities manage homelessness. The legal issue is whether they can fine or arrest people for sleeping outside if there's no shelter available. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has deemed this cruel and unusual punishment, and this case is a pivotal challenge to that ruling.

The high court declined to take up a similar case in 2019. But since then, homelessness rates have climbed relentlessly. Street encampments have grown larger and have expanded to new places, igniting intense backlash from residents and businesses. Homelessness and the lack of affordable housing that's helping to drive it have become key issues for many voters.

The case, Grants Pass v. Johnson , could have dramatic implications for the record number of people living in tents and cars across the United States.

An Oregon town banned camping and the use of sleeping bags and stoves on public property

In the small city of Grants Pass, Ore. , homeless people say the city broke the law when it aggressively tried to push them out over the past decade. To discourage people from sleeping in public spaces, the city banned the use of stoves and sleeping bags or other bedding. But during several years when she had lost housing, Helen Cruz says she needed to live in city parks because they're close to the jobs she had cleaning houses.

"We're not out there because we want to be," she says. "We don't have a choice. There's no place to go."

Grants Pass has no homeless shelter that's open to everyone. A religious mission takes in a few who agree to attend services. That left Cruz racking up thousands of dollars in fines, which she remains unable to pay.

"And I keep getting mail from Josephine County court saying, 'You owe this. If you don't pay this, it's going to collections,'" she says, "which has destroyed my credit."

A lawsuit originally filed in 2018 on behalf of homeless people in Grants Pass said the situation there was part of a larger crisis, as homelessness rates around the U.S. were high and growing. It accused the city of trying to "punish people based on their status of being involuntarily homeless." The 9th Circuit agreed, saying the city could not ban people from sleeping outside with "rudimentary protection from the elements" when there was nowhere else for them to go.

The same appeals court also sided with homeless people in a landmark 2018 case out of Boise, Idaho, which the Supreme Court later declined to take up.

Critics say the Grants Pass ruling is a major expansion over the Boise one, since it forbids not just criminal penalties but civil ones. Advocates for homeless people don't see much difference, since some in Grants Pass who couldn't pay their fines were eventually jailed.

Grants Pass petitioned the Supreme Court. And its appeal has drawn support from dozens of local and state officials across the West and elsewhere who urged the justices to take this case. Among those filing such friend-of-the-court briefs are Republican -led states like Idaho, Montana and Nebraska and Democratic-led cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco, plus a separate brief from California Gov. Gavin Newsom .

Officials say the law has paralyzed their efforts to manage a public safety crisis

States and cities contend these rulings have contributed to the growth of tent encampments.

"These decisions are legally wrong and have tied the hands of local governments as they work to address the urgent homelessness crisis," Theane Evangelis, the attorney representing Grants Pass , said in a statement. "The tragedy is that these decisions are actually harming the very people they purport to protect."

Evangelis and others say sprawling tent camps pose a threat to public health and safety. Those living in them often face theft or assault and are at risk of being hit by passing vehicles. And they note that encampments have led to fires, disease, environmental hazards and high numbers of people overdosing on drugs and dying on public streets.

"It's just gone too far," California Gov. Gavin Newsom said last year at a Politico event in Sacramento. "People's lives are at risk. It's unacceptable what's happening on the streets and sidewalks. Compassion is not stepping over people on the streets."

Critics also say the 9th Circuit's rulings are ambiguous and have been interpreted too broadly, making them unworkable in practice.

"We need to have clarity," says Seattle City Attorney Ann Davison, who wrote a legal brief on behalf of more than a dozen other cities plus the National League of Cities.

For example, what exactly constitutes adequate shelter? And what about when a bed is open, but someone refuses to go? Local officials say that this happens a lot, and some acknowledge that people might have good reasons to not want to go to a shelter. Yet Davison says court rulings essentially require cities to build enough shelter for every person without housing, something many places can't possibly afford.

They also argue that homelessness is a complex problem that requires balancing competing interests, something local officials are better equipped to do than the courts.

"We are trying to show there's respect for the public areas that we all need to have," Davison says. "And we care for people, and we're engaging and being involved in the long-term solution for them."

Advocates say punishing homeless people won't solve the problem

Attorneys and advocates for the homeless plaintiffs argue that the 9th Circuit rulings are far narrower and less restrictive than cities claim.

"It's interesting to me that the people in power have thrown up their hands and said, 'There's nothing we can do, and the only solution we can think of is to arrest people,'" says Jesse Rabinowitz of the National Homelessness Law Center. "That's simply not true."

He and others say the rulings do allow cities to regulate encampments. They can limit the time and place for them, ban the use of tents, even clear them out. And plenty of cities do that, though they often face lawsuits over the details of what's allowed.

Grants Pass did what's not allowed, which is ban camps everywhere all the time, says Ed Johnson of the Oregon Law Center, which represents those suing the city. He says that would basically make it illegal for people to exist.

"It's sort of the bare minimum in what a just society should expect, is that you're not going to punish someone for something they have no ability to control," he says.

The reason they can't control being homeless, Johnson says, is because Grants Pass — like so many cities around the U.S. — has a severe housing shortage and unaffordable rents. He says that cities are blaming the courts for decades of failed housing policies and that fining and jailing people only makes the problem worse.

"When we criminalize people, we know it impacts their ability to get a job," says Ann Oliva, CEO of the National Alliance to End Homelessness. "It impacts their ability to get housing in the long run if they have a criminal record."

Some cities that side with Grants Pass say they have invested heavily to create more affordable housing, even as homelessness rates keep going up. That's a long-term challenge they'll still face, whatever the Supreme Court decides.

Copyright 2024 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

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COMMENTS

  1. How to Fix America's Homelessness Crisis, According to a Researcher

    A universal healthcare system alone would resolve many of the issues that push Americans onto the streets, and which exacerbate their problems once they're on the street. With rents and housing...

  2. Why it's so hard to end homelessness in America

    January 24, 2024 long read Experts cite complexity of problem, which is rooted in poverty, lack of affordable housing but includes medical, psychiatric, substance-use issues It took seven years for Abigail Judge to see what success looked like for one Boston homeless woman.

  3. We can solve the homeless crisis. Here's how

    (LOS ANGELES) (JULY 2, 2021) Dr. Michele Nealon, president of The Chicago School of Professional Psychology, says the only way we can solve the nation's homeless crisis is through a highly concentrated and coordinated effort involving public and private sectors.

  4. How to solve homelessness

    New solutions to the global homelessness problem | World Economic Forum Homelessness is on the rise, but innovative approaches to fixing the root causes are showing signs of success.

  5. PDF 10 Strategies to Reduce Homelessness With the American Rescue Plan

    5. Reduce Waiting Periods for Housing Placements 6. Guarantee Paths to Housing From Unsheltered Homelessness 7. Recruit, Support, and Retain Landlords 8. Leverage Support Services Expand the Affordable Housing Supply 9. Support Innovation in Development 10. Coordinate Federal, State, and Local Housing Resources

  6. Solutions

    The solution to homelessness is simple - housing. Rapid re-housing is an intervention designed to quickly connect people to housing and services. Rapid Re-housing Assistance for the Most Vulnerable Sometimes people need longer-term rental assistance and services supports to achieve stability.

  7. How 100 Communities Are Solving Homelessness—And What We Can ...

    Solving homelessness means learning how to solve it every day. And as the issues shift over time—say there's a fire at a large apartment building or a natural disaster like a flood ...

  8. Preventing homelessness is a key focus of new Biden plan : NPR

    More people than ever are being moved out of homelessness in the U.S., just over 900,000 a year on average since 2017. The problem is that about the same number or more have lost housing in the ...

  9. This doctor wants to prescribe a cure for homelessness

    Housing those who need it, Boozary says, is a necessary first step, providing people with the stability needed to solve other problems that may have resulted in them becoming homeless in the first ...

  10. How To Help End Homelessness: 7 Services And Resources

    Author: Victoria Araj Having a roof over your head is a basic necessity. However, for many Americans, renting even a small room is inaccessible, and buying a home is completely out of reach.

  11. Why Homelessness Still Exists and How We Can End It

    Absolutely not. We have developed systems that are increasingly efficient in helping people move from homelessness to the stability and connection of a permanent home. We see these success stories every day. It is what inspires us to continue in this challenging work. So what are we not doing right?

  12. Homelessness and Public Health: A Focus on Strategies and Solutions

    The health problems facing homeless persons result from various factors, including a lack of housing, racism and discrimination, barriers to health care, a lack of access to adequate food and protection, limited resources for social services, and an inadequate public health infrastructure.

  13. We Could Solve Homelessness if We Wanted

    Taken together, they underline the way America's homelessness crisis has taken on a depressing air of inevitability—not something that can be solved or even directly addressed, but an immovable...

  14. Two cities tried to fix homelessness, only one succeeded

    HOUSTON — Nearly a decade ago, two U.S. cities with large homeless populations tried to solve their problem by adopting a strategy that prioritized giving people housing and help over temporary shelter. But Houston and San Diego took fundamentally different approaches to implementing that strategy, known as Housing First.

  15. America's Homelessness Crisis Is Getting Worse

    America's homelessness problem has the makings of an acute crisis. Shelters across the U.S. are reporting a surge in people looking for help, with wait lists doubling or tripling in recent months.

  16. Ending Homelessness: Addressing Local Challenges in Housing the Most

    The housing-related relief measures are temporary; thus, further policies and investments will be needed to solve the longer-term problems of housing instability and homelessness. ... We know how to solve homelessness: by providing opportunities for all families and individuals to live in safe and affordable housing that they choose and that ...

  17. How to Address Homelessness: Reflections from Research

    If homelessness is at root a housing affordability problem, then providing more affordable housing would seem to be the most direct way to address it. Policy responses, however, have tended historically to focus on homelessness as a function of individual (micro) social and behavioral challenges (such as mental illness or substance use), or ...

  18. Why the U.S. can't solve the homelessness crisis

    Can the U.S. solve homelessness? Key Points Over half a million Americans were unhoused in 2020. Despite the rising budget, overall homelessness in the U.S. has improved by only 10% compared...

  19. What needs to be done to end homelessness?

    An adequate supply of safe, affordable and appropriate housing is a prerequisite to truly ending homelessness in the long term. This includes ensuring that people who are chronically and episodically homeless are prioritized and that systems are in place to enable such persons to receive housing and supports through Housing First programs.

  20. Opinion

    The longer homelessness stretches on, the harder it is for people experiencing it to recover. ... Humans have to solve it. Politics can't do that. ... And as long as that goes on, this problem is ...

  21. 4 reasons why homelessness keeps going up : NPR

    But again, the overriding problem, they say, is the dire lack of places low-income people can afford to live. "There's really no way to solve homelessness without seriously addressing this," says ...

  22. How far can cities go to clear homeless camps? The U.S. Supreme Court

    Homelessness and the lack of affordable housing that's helping to drive it have become key issues for many voters. ... Advocates say punishing homeless people won't solve the problem.

  23. Commentary: How to solve our soaring homelessness problem

    Some cities have programs to provide short-term rental assistance to those facing eviction, along with services to help people find a job. This may help prevent homelessness in the first place ...

  24. How to solve America's soaring homelessness problem

    Whatever the reasons, Kevin Corinth of the American Enterprise Institute estimates it takes 10 permanent supportive housing units to reduce homelessness by just one person. "Housing first" also is expensive. A project in Los Angeles has cost the city $690,000 per unit. Prioritizing housing first also means that programs requiring treatment ...

  25. Editorial: Here's how Los Angeles can help prevent people from falling

    Homelessness did go up in 2022, but only by 4%, a fraction of the 12.7% increase found in the January 2020 annual homeless count. Officials attribute that to the pandemic-era eviction moratorium.

  26. How far can cities go to clear homeless camps? The U.S. Supreme Court

    Advocates say punishing homeless people won't solve the problem. Attorneys and advocates for the homeless plaintiffs argue that the 9th Circuit rulings are far narrower and less restrictive than cities claim. "It's interesting to me that the people in power have thrown up their hands and said, 'There's nothing we can do, and the only solution ...

  27. How far can cities go to clear homeless camps? The U.S ...

    Advocates say punishing homeless people won't solve the problem Attorneys and advocates for the homeless plaintiffs argue that the 9th Circuit rulings are far narrower and less restrictive than ...