should the government help the homeless essay

What Americans say the government should do about the homeless

The number of homeless people in America has decreased over the last decade—but the question of who should be doing the bulk of caring for the nation’s homeless population remains a contentious question among partisans.

More than a quarter of Republicans (27%) say America’s local governments have “no obligation” to the homeless. Within that group, 19% of Republicans say there is no government obligation because charities should be responsible for the homeless, while 8% say “sleeping on the streets should be illegal.” These numbers have remained steady since YouGov began measuring partisan opinion on homelessness in 2016.

should the government help the homeless essay

President Donald Trump appeared uncertain about the extent of appropriate federal government involvement during an interview with Fox News’ Tucker Carlson last week.

Trump spoke about people living on the street in large cities, saying, “We may intercede, we may do something to get that whole thing cleaned up; it’s inappropriate. We’re really not very equipped as a government to be doing that kind of work; that’s not really the kind of work that the government probably should be doing.”

Democrats are much less likely (5%) to say local governments have “no obligation” to the homeless. Only 3% say homeless people “should be the responsibility of charities,” and 2% say sleeping on the streets should be illegal. Three in ten (30%) Democrats believe all homeless people should be provided beds in a shelter by their local government, a sentiment that just 12% of Republicans agree with.

The most-likely common political ground: most Republicans, Democrats, and Independents say some homeless people should be provided beds and the government should give assistance to charities where possible. Half of Republicans (50%) support a split of duties between government and charities compared to 48% of Independents and 45% of Democrats.

Methodology : Total unweighted sample size was 47,302 US adults, which contained 15,969 Democrats, 13,014 Republicans, and 14,094 Independents. The figures have been weighted and are representative of all US adults (ages 18+). Interviews were conducted online between June 2018 - June 2019.

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Argumentative Essay on The Homeless

Categories: Homelessness

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Published: Mar 14, 2024

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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 .

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.”

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.”

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.”

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

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.

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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The Economics Of Why Homelessness Worsens As Governments Spend Even More On The Problem

California’s homeless population is rising rapidly despite substantially higher government spending on the problem.

California’s homeless population rose rapidly last year despite substantially higher government spending on the problem. There are roughly 60,000 homeless people in LA County, and homelessness has increased as much as 43 percent over the last year in parts of the San Francisco Bay Area. The latest statistics are shocking state and local politicians, who have been pouring billions of dollars into addressing homelessness. “It’s like cold water being thrown in one’s face after all this good work,” said Los Angeles County supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas, who cochairs the state’s Homelessness Task Force.

But politicians should not be shocked by the rise in homelessness, because state and local government policies do not address the obvious supply-and-demand factors that are creating such large numbers of homeless people in California.

Despite more than $1.2 billion being spent on this issue in the coming year in LA County alone—roughly $20,000 per homeless person—homelessness will almost certainly worsen in the coming years. And today’s politicians who are trying to deal with roughly 135,000 homeless people within the state can thank previous generations of politicians who presided over decades of badly designed public policies that created this problem in the first place.

There are two aspects to this issue. One is the supply of housing. Relatively little new construction is being built, particularly in the very popular coastal areas that include Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay Area, and San Diego. The current level of residential building permits in California is as much as 70 percent lower than it was during California’s building heyday of the 1950s and 1960s. And what does get built is very expensive, far beyond the budgets of most California households. Construction costs in California are roughly five times as high as the national average . The average cost for building an “affordable” two-bedroom unit is $425,000.

Substantial regulatory burdens and permit costs are key reasons why building costs are so high in California. Environmental lawsuits can be a nearly endless stream and derail development for 25 years or more . Cash-strapped local governments frequently require enormous buy-ins before granting development permits. Recently, the city of San Jose tried to force a $50,000 payment on an apartment owner to provide maintenance for a park in return for granting a permit to convert his apartment’s recreation room into two small studio units .

Moreover, building affordable housing for the homeless is frequently fought tooth and nail by current residents in the proposed neighborhoods. Many blame existing homeowners for “NIMBYism” and trying to block these developments, but many of these homeowners have invested virtually all their assets in extremely expensive California housing and are doing whatever they can to protect their investments. Housing was never intended to be a family’s primary investment vehicle, but that is now more often the case in California. One really should blame not the residents but rather the politicians who have done nothing for decades to address unaffordable housing.

The second part of the problem is the one that no politician wants to talk about. Given that housing supply will expand much more slowly than demand, there are far too many people who want to live in the most popular—and expensive—California cities than who can be housed. The average apartment rental in Los Angeles is now about $2,400 for less than 800 square feet . The income required to rent such an apartment is about $95,000 per year, which is well above the area’s median household income of about $61,000 per year .

The real estate market is telling California loud and clear that there are way too many people in the most densely populated California cities. But this important information is being buried because it would be political suicide for any politician to discuss these economic issues, lest they be construed as being insensitive towards the homeless.

But it gets even worse. About 54 percent of renters within the state have rental payments that exceed thirty percent of household income, which is the standard national income limit for approval;Even more troubling is that nearly 29 percent of renters pay rent that is 50 percent or more of their household income. These households are living beyond their means, and some are just a rent increase or a car repair away from losing their housing. Once a scarce, low-income housing unit is built and occupied by a homeless family, another family—or more than one—will suffer a financial setback and become homeless. The state’s current policy is analogous to slowly adding water to a leaking bucket rather than fixing the leaking bucket. A much more cost-effective solution is to focus development in the non-coastal areas of California, where both land prices and construction costs are much lower than in locations such as San Francisco and Los Angeles, and in which there likely would be fewer lawsuits.

This approach could be combined with sensible state infrastructure investments and tax incentives for companies that wish to locate to more affordable locations. This would be an ideal time to repurpose the funding for the state’s high-speed rail project to more worthwhile investments. Presently, the cost of connecting; limited route of;Bakersfield to Merced is roughly $20 billion. Just imagine how schools, infrastructure, and new business investments could improve with this level of state funding, which in turn would increase the desirability of living in non-coastal California.

California cities also need to enforce laws to address the homeless crisis. Typhus, tuberculosis, and hepatitis are widespread in some areas of Los Angeles, San Francisco, and San Diego. City streets are littered with human waste and 2 million used hypodermic needles annually in San Francisco, where one out of every 38 residents has a substance-abuse problem . Tolerating this aspect of homelessness makes everyone, including the homeless, much worse off.

California’s homelessness crisis is becoming more severe despite more taxpayer-financed spending and is occurring in a hot economy with a historically low unemployment rate. This problem will balloon during the state’s next economic downturn if the state does not substantially change its policies.

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To address homelessness, place governance must evolve

Subscribe to transformative placemaking, tracy hadden loh and tracy hadden loh fellow - brookings metro , anne t. and robert m. bass center for transformative placemaking jennifer s. vey jennifer s. vey nonresident senior fellow - brookings metro.

December 1, 2021

This November marked the annual Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week—aptly timed to coincide with the season of giving, celebrations of harvest plenty, and, in much of the country, the arrival of the cold, cruel weather that makes homelessness perhaps ever so slightly more in the conscience of those who don’t personally have to worry about it.

This might be particularly true this year, given the “devastating” recent national surge in people experiencing homelessness who are occupying public spaces (also known as “unsheltered”). As downtowns struggle to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, the “tent cities” and “encampments” that have filled spaces once busy with office workers have become tangible symbols of the virus’s crushing effects. Americans and foreign visitors alike have been shocked by the scale of unsheltered homelessness in our cities, and the limits of our current structures of governance—at all scales—to solve it.

Given the fractured nature of the American landscape, we shouldn’t be so surprised. While the roots of—and ideally the remedies for—homelessness are expansive across both systems (e.g., health care, housing, workforce) and geography, the visibility of—and hence the unspoken responsibility for—unsheltered individuals is largely confined to the parks and plazas where they congregate and the organizations that manage those spaces. This mismatch perfectly illustrates the perils of the country’s entrenched patterns of segregation—and why reimagining governance is key to dismantling it.

Segregation has blinded many Americans to the homelessness crisis

In the nearly seven decades since the Brown v. Board of Education decision struck down the farcical notion that Black and white Americans could be “separate but equal” in the eyes of law and society, segregation in the U.S. has increased in spatial scale and expanded to include separation by income and land use type. Thus, even as the country has become more racially diverse, it is still mostly segregated by race at the neighborhood level, and even as overall poverty declined, concentrated poverty has gotten worse. Meanwhile, different land uses such as houses, apartments, stores, and offices are farther apart than ever .

This segregation inevitably produces unequal outcomes and has helped create the ongoing homelessness crisis. Wealth and opportunity are hoarded in some neighborhoods while poverty is concentrated in others. Between neighborhoods, low wages and high costs produce a shortage of affordable housing, while inadequate social systems—including unemployment insurance, mental health treatment, and the criminal justice system—let many people fall through the cracks. But across the huge land areas required to segregate a growing population by race, income, and land use, most people are safely distant from having to actually see any manifestation of this inequality, much less feel accountability for it.

Simply put, the near invisibility of the unsheltered for many Americans is due to the fact that not every place sees homelessness to the same degree. Because people experiencing homelessness are drawn to the most highly accessible locations to meet their needs (to public spaces where they retain some rights and to visible hubs that may provide some sense of security), most places have no homeless people and a few have a lot. The upshot of these distributional issues is that there is tremendous pressure on only a small number of people and places to “solve” homelessness, even when the causes are systemic.

This status quo is not inevitable and does not have to remain permanent. As Brookings’s Hanna Love and Jennifer S. Vey note , the COVID-19 pandemic has made the limits of quarantine, isolation, and separation policies painfully obvious. Instead, we need to reform, invest in, and break down silos between federal, state, and local governance systems—from housing to health care—that can help prevent homelessness. But we also need to evolve a new generation of hyperlocal place governance organizations that are often already working in the spaces and communities where people experiencing homelessness gather—and who can more intimately see, understand, and help respond to the crisis.

Place governance is key to addressing homelessness

Historians and sociologists have long noted that the end of state-enforced de jure segregation in the civil rights era was replaced by a new reality of de facto segregation enforced by privatization and markets. This privatization includes entire geographic areas smaller than any public general purpose government (such as a county or most municipalities). Neighborhoods and places are increasingly governed by structures like private homeowners associations, quasi-private business improvement districts (BIDs), or even technically public suburban micro-municipalities created through defensive incorporation—places like Highland Park, Texas (which is completely surrounded by Dallas) or Beverly Hills, Calif. (surrounded by Los Angeles).

There has clearly been significant demand for expanding this sort of hyperlocal governance capacity. In addition to the massive proliferation of homeowners associations , special districts like BIDs have rapidly expanded to the point where they are now almost as common as general purpose local governments (Figure 1). While these organizations typically engage in important community functions the public sector won’t or can’t take on—from maintaining and programming public spaces to small business assistance and beyond—many have also faced widespread challenges to their legitimacy, transparency, accountability, fairness, and capacity, particularly when it comes to the homeless or other marginalized populations. For example, some BIDs have been criticized for displacing people experiencing homelessness under the guise of claiming to help. Others have been criticized for not intervening enough . In the name of defending public space for shared use by all rather than occupancy by a few, place governance organizations have often failed to strike a balance that allows public spaces to work for everyone.

While sometimes framed as incompetence or even malice, the fact is that there is a wide gap between the outsized responsibility many of these organizations bear to address homelessness (given the hyper-segregation of those experiencing it) and the capacity of these entities to do so given the scale and complexity of the challenge. Yet they are also uniquely positioned to help bridge that divide—to reach across, rather than exist within, boundaries typically erected by sector (e.g., real estate or service provision) and geography (e.g., neighborhood, tax district) to create a more integrated and inclusive service system that meets individuals who are unsheltered where they are. Some organizations are already taking this approach. For example, in 2018, Central Atlanta Progress and the Atlanta Downtown Improvement District hired a dedicated case manager focused on addressing the holistic needs of the unsheltered in and around Woodruff Park, building on other efforts to address homelessness in the area. And in San Francisco and Los Angeles, Urban Alchemy employs people with their own lived experience related to homelessness to engage and assist the unsheltered to improve safety and maintenance of public spaces for them and for other users. Still, most regions lack a comprehensive strategy to address homelessness that coordinates social service providers, housing agencies, healthcare and other city agencies with place-based organizations and public space managers—strategies that could help facilitate the transition of unsheltered individuals in public spaces into an appropriate Continuum of Care , and ultimately, into stable housing. Big metropolitan areas can contain a dozen or more Continuums of Care, and most do not include public space managers.

Elena Madison (Project for Public Spaces) and Joy Moses (National Alliance to End Homelessness) will discuss these issues in depth in their forthcoming chapter of “Hyperlocal: Place Governance in a Fragmented World,” to published by Brookings Press this spring. Through seven additional chapters written by authors from around the country, the book examines both the tensions and benefits associated with governing places in an increasingly fragmented—and inequitable—economic landscape. It provides nuanced insight into the role place governance plays in both contributing to and combating place-based socioeconomic inequities. Finally, it highlights how we can create and sustain more effective and inclusive place governance structures that support all members of a community—to not simply survive, but to thrive.

How Can the U.S. End Homelessness?

Giving people access to support services and a place to stay can reduce the number of those living on the streets. But can that be done affordably?

A&Q is a special series that inverts the classic Q&A , taking some of the most frequently posed solutions to pressing matters of policy and exploring their complexity.

On any given night in the United States, half a million people are homeless. Some of them sleep in shelters, others on the streets; roughly one-quarter are children.

About 15 percent are so-called chronically homeless, which means they haven’t had a permanent home in years, and often cycle through jails, hospitals and homeless shelters in search of a place to lay their heads.

The government has tried to tackle the problem of homelessness on nearly every level, but comprehensive solutions have proven elusive, despite billions spent over time. The federal government has set a series of goals of ending homelessness for veterans by 2015, chronic homelessness by 2017, and homelessness for families with children and youth by 2020. But reaching these benchmarks appears to be much further off.

Seemingly every policy group that works on this issue has ideas about how to solve it for good. But what really works to help people get—and stay—off the streets? And is there any way to do it that wouldn’t be wildly expensive?

Can we count on that as a long-term solution?

Shelters are certainly useful in that they provide beds and roofs to people who don’t have them, especially on cold and rainy nights where sleeping outside could be fatal for some.

But shelters are incredibly expensive to operate. Nationally, the average monthly cost of serving a family in an emergency shelter is $4,819. Providing them with a voucher for housing, on the other hand, is just $1,162. Shelters might be good for emergencies, but does having a bed to sleep in mean that someone has a home?

And quality can be an issue for these shelters: Many homeless people have told advocates trying to get them off the streets that they avoid shelters if they possibly can. They’ve heard about bad experiences there, or have themselves suffered through violence, theft, or other trauma in these ostensibly safer spaces. There were 826 “violent incidents” in New York City homeless shelters last year, including sexual assault and domestic violence, according to the New York Daily News .

People often have to leave food and other belongings behind when they check into a shelter, making it hard to accumulate anything of sentimental or material value. Plus, shelters don’t allow residents to develop a sense of permanency—and it’s permanency that helps people get a job or stay sober, as numerous studies have indicated.

If it were that easy to add more affordable housing , cities like New York and San Francisco would be very different than they are now, and far less expensive. It’s costly to build new apartments and homes in cities where land is pricey, and developers want to recoup their investment as soon as possible, which means they have to charge a lot for rent.

That’s not to say cities, states, and the federal government haven’t tried out a few strategies for hastening the construction of affordable housing. Have any of them been effective?

There are federal Low Income Housing Tax Credits that help certain developers build 100 percent affordable housing. But developers compete for those tax credits, and there aren’t enough to held build affordable housing for all the people who need it, much less for those who don’t have homes in the first place.

Inclusionary zoning policies can help create more affordable housing; in places such as Montgomery County, Maryland, for instance, all new apartment buildings with more than a certain number of units have to set aside a few of them to be designated as affordable housing, priced much lower than market rent. But then developers usually have to pass the costs of that lost rent onto the other tenants, which increases market-rate rent.

In most municipalities, inclusionary zoning is voluntary, which means that developers who include affordable units can skirt some regulations, allowing them to build higher, for instance, or make their buildings denser.

Making this kind of zoning mandatory can be tricky, though, because developers argue that they can’t charge enough for market-rate units in low- and middle-income neighborhoods to subsidize the affordable units. In March, New York City made inclusionary zoning mandatory in some neighborhoods, and developers are already complaining that it’s become harder to build affordable housing in the city.

This is what’s called a housing-first approach, and numerous studies have found it’s much more effective than relying on shelters. Housing-first places homeless people in long-term housing without asking them to get sober or hang onto a job first. After they’re settled in a stable home, they gain access to services such as drug and alcohol treatment, an assigned social worker, or job training. They don’t have to take advantage of those services, but most people chose to do so.

Through housing-first, Utah reduced its chronically-homeless population 72 percent between 2005 and 2014. Just having a roof over their head, a permanent address, and a place to prepare food and store belongings made so much of a difference for people that the director of the state’s Housing and Community Development Division told the Washington Post that the number of chronically homeless was “approaching a functional zero.”

But why should homeless people get a free place to live? There are lots of people who need affordable housing but aren’t currently homeless, after all. And housing-first isn’t cheap—though tenants pay a small portion of their rent, the state or city usually picks up much of the tab. A voucher for a housing program, like Section 8, can cost $1,162 a month , and spending that money means fewer people get rental assistance overall.

When long-term housing is hard to come by, people desperate for help often get abused. As The New York Times pointed out in a heartbreaking story last year, cities such as New York with a large homeless population have seen the growth of three-quarters houses, which cram multiple people into one bedroom while purporting to help them. Often, they’re just collecting these peoples’ money without giving them any services or even a clean place to live.

Not every homeless person will thrive just because they have a place to live. Some have mental or physical problems that make it difficult for them to stay off the streets after getting a home. Others may never be able to support themselves completely without a community to keep them afloat. Jeffrey Nemetsky, who runs Brooklyn Community Housing and Services, says having a social worker knock on the door once a day to say hello can mean the difference between a tenant staying or heading back out onto the streets.

True, permanent supportive housing can be very effective at helping the chronically homeless get off the streets and stay stable. But is it legal?

Many people who need permanent supportive housing are battling mental problems or drug and alcohol abuse, and would have once ended up in institutions. But since the deinstitutionalization movement began in the 1960s and ’70s, the number of in-patient beds at state or county mental health facilities has declined from more than 400,000 to fewer than 100,000.

Though some institutions still exist, the practice of putting the mentally ill into segregated buildings falls into a gray area. In 1999, the Supreme Court ruled that the segregation of people with disabilities violated the Americans with Disabilities Act. Though the case was about people on Medicaid, homeless advocates interpreted it to apply to some chronically homeless with disabilities. Isolating those homeless people from the rest of society is akin to institutionalizing them, advocates say, and it violates the law.

That’s why some housing developments provide both permanent supportive housing and low-income housing, so that homes can be made available to a larger swath of the population. This kind of mixed-use housing helps create communities; in one building in Harlem, single moms living in affordable housing helped out the ex-cons living in supportive housing, and vice versa. Though the building’s developers worried that low-income moms wouldn’t want to live with the mentally ill, some 2,000 people applied for just a few dozen units when the building opened. This and other experiences suggest that integrating supportive and low-income housing can be successful.

But still, agencies and advocates all over the country are struggling to serve the homeless people with mental illness and addiction. It often takes years for case workers to get people to try out permanent supportive housing and abandon the lives they’ve known on the streets. Some cities and states have started allowing judges to order people who cycle through the system to receive treatment for their illnesses, an approach that’s controversial.

Across the country, experts on homelessness have solutions they think will work best. The problem is, housing in many cities is getting more expensive every month, and as prices rise, so do the costs of programs to combat homelessness.

Meanwhile, federal funds for affordable housing have stayed at the same levels for years. So as housing costs go up, those funds are spread more thinly and help fewer people.

But if homelessness is really a problem the country wants to solve by 2020, why not increase the amount of money overall that the government spends on programs to help the homeless? Where could that money come from?

Why not stimulate the creation of affordable housing so to assist both the chronically homeless and those who are homeless temporarily? Such housing could be available to people below certain income levels, and they could qualify whether they are on the streets or are in an apartment they can’t afford.

For some, it’s hard to imagine carving out more money from the country’s budget to address these issues. But solving homelessness can help fix a lot of other problems too, including truancy from schools, food insecurity, drug and alcohol abuse, unemployment. Is it possible that directing more resources toward solving homelessness could actually save society money by helping to fix its other ills at the same time?

Maybe there’s an answer we haven’t considered yet. Drop your thoughts into an email to l [email protected] .

About the Author

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.

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

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 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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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

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 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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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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Five lessons the pandemic taught us about ending homelessness permanently

Research Associate, International Public Policy Observatory, UCL

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Jeremy Williams works for the International Public Policy Observatory, of which The Conversation is a partner organisation.

University College London provides funding as a founding partner of The Conversation UK.

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One surprising success story to come out of the pandemic was how many countries and cities were able to significantly reduce street homelessness. Lockdowns enabled governments to treat homelessness as a public health emergency and act swiftly to accommodate and support people experiencing homelessness.

There were two key fears when it came to homeless populations and the pandemic. First, that those who couldn’t stay at home risked spreading the virus. Second, that those experiencing homelessness would be stigmatised as vectors of the disease, while also being cut off from access to food, support and shelter. Providing emergency accommodation, much of it in private rooms, and taking steps to prevent new homelessness helped alleviate these fears.

Our new report from the Centre for Homelessness Impact and IPPO Cities , part of the International Public Policy Observatory (of which The Conversation is a partner), details the lessons we can learn from COVID about how to end homelessness in the long term.

1. Ending homelessness is a realistic policy goal

The combination of the right political will and funding shows us that street homelessness can be all but eliminated very quickly. This happened for a period in the UK, where 40,000 people moved out of emergency accommodation into longer term accommodation between March 2020 and November 2021.

The public health necessity of housing those experiencing homelessness created a political imperative for radical action. Many governments provided dedicated funding in the initial phase of the pandemic, vastly increasing the resources available to tackle the problem.

While not all gains were permanent, the fact that this took place at all shows that the goal of ending homelessness permanently is realistic.

2. Suspending eligibility criteria helps

Reducing homelessness also means removing the barriers for people to get help. Governments often distribute resources like housing support based on set criteria , like whether you are supporting a family. But the pandemic shows us that a more universal approach – offering housing to everyone regardless of their specific circumstance – works much better.

Prior to COVID, the UK excluded certain people from accessing publicly funded accommodation based on immigration status or for other reasons of having “ no recourse to public funds ”. This meant some homeless people, many of them sleeping rough or in shelters, had little prospect of resolution. Removing this restriction on eligibility allowed those previously existing under the radar of local authorities to access services and be housed and counted for the first time.

3. Collaboration is key

Ending homelessness can’t be done by the government alone – it requires collaboration with the voluntary and private sectors who have the specialist expertise, on the ground know-how and resources necessary for effective action.

The widespread shuttering of the leisure travel industry led to an available stock of private sector hotel rooms which were then used to house people. This public-private cooperation allowed individuals to be housed in their own rooms, which was also important for preventing transmission of COVID.

An advertising screen on a Manchester street showing public health guidance to Stay Home.

There was also coordination between different services not previously as directly involved in housing and homelessness. In London , health workers provided initial health screenings, while mental health professionals gave support to homeless people in accommodation.

Making this kind of collaboration permanent, as well as shifting away from the use of shelters and communal hostels and towards single rooms, is necessary for a permanent end to homelessness. The provision of own-room accommodation during the pandemic increased people’s sense of dignity and self-worth in addition to preventing COVID transmission.

4. Eviction bans work

Many countries also took action to help those at risk of becoming homeless by introducing eviction bans, which protect tenants from being forced from their homes.

In Houston in the US, a programme to support people at the point of eviction directed 2,895 individuals away from risk of homelessness into alternative housing. A separate rent relief programme supported tens of thousands more tenants at risk of becoming homeless. Together, these measures also allowed existing resources to be targeted at those who were currently without a home.

While making a comprehensive eviction ban permanent is perhaps not possible, the pandemic shows it is a helpful tool in preventing new homelessness.

5. A clear mandate is needed

COVID showed us that ending street homelessness is possible with the right political will and corresponding funding. Designating it as a public health crisis provided a necessary and clear mandate that unlocked the tools to take decisive action.

However, many of the gains made during lockdowns have not endured. Homelessness in England in the period July-September 2021 had returned broadly to pre-pandemic levels .

For the kind of concerted action which worked during the pandemic to become more permanent, many countries will require a change in approach, including an expanded role for the state.

The Centre for Homelessness Impact and the IPPO Cities are hosting an online roundtable event to discuss the lessons of the pandemic for ending homelessness on Thursday 31 March 2022, from 3:30 pm to 5:00 pm. Sign up here .

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Homelessness as a Social Issue Essay

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Introduction

Status quo/impacts, history/context, ethical solutions to the problem, recommendations, works cited.

Homelessness is a pertinent social problem that has been escalating over the past few decades. Efforts by different governments across the world to contain the problem have not been successful in dealing with homelessness (Atherton and Nicholls 96). Homelessness is attributed to poverty, substance abuse, mental disorders, unemployment, and increased rental rates, among other factors.

Chronic homeless is believed to be the major cause of other social problems such as poor health, substance abuse, and illiteracy amongst the affected individuals (Tompsett et al. 50). The cost incurred by governments in providing healthcare services for homeless individuals is high, and if the issue is not addressed in time, it may affect the world’s economy in the near future. This paper explores the issue of homelessness, its status and impacts, the historical context, and ethical solutions to the problem.

Statistics indicate that by March 2015, 578,424 individuals in the US were homeless (“National Alliance to End Homelessness” 5). According to the “National Alliance to End Homelessness,” about two-thirds of these people spend their nights in temporary shelters (6). In addition, one-third of the homeless individuals spend their nights either in cars or under bridges.

Moreover, a quarter of the group is composed of children who are under the age of 18 years (“National Alliance to End Homelessness” 7). Veterans form a great number of homeless individuals in the US, with about 57000 of them spending nights in temporary shelters or unsheltered places (“National Alliance to End Homelessness” 6).

Research indicates that homeless persons are at a high risk of contracting infectious diseases, which increases the cost of health, thus affecting the country’s economy (Tompsett et al. 53). Security of the population is also a major concern since such people have to carry their clothes and beddings to avoid loss through theft.

Homeless people’s privacy is not guaranteed, and they suffer from the shortage of sanitary materials, which exposes them to infectious illnesses and other health hazards (Atherton and Nicholls 113). The problem with this population is further compounded by the lack of addresses, which denies them job opportunities since employers require potential employees to prove their residency before they are hired (Cronley 329).

In addition, the groups have fewer chances of being admitted to educational institutions due to their poor financial and health conditions (Tompsett et al. 54). This population is highly susceptible to violence, and it contributes to increased crime rates where they reside. In addition, the government incurs huge losses in a bid to address other parallel social issues emanating from homelessness (Shelton et al. 468). The losses come in the form of healthcare costs, police patrols to deter crime by these groups, and civil cases, among others.

Homelessness is not an emerging issue as it dates back to the 17 th Century (Turnbull, Muckle, and Masters 1066). Initially, it was not viewed as a social problem, but as a moral issue and obligation as people moved from their rural areas to prove their financial wellbeing (Toro 477). However, today, the issue has turned into a social problem that requires stringent measures to contain it. Various groups have engaged the governments in civil suits in efforts to have the administration settle all the destitute persons.

The suits are premised on the Bill of Rights that guarantees each citizen the right to proper housing (Cronley 331). Research indicates that 20% of homeless persons suffer from untreated mental illnesses, and this aspect complicates the problem (Toro 477).

Research further indicates that the group is at a high risk of suffering from addiction in an effort to contain stress and ignominy associated with homelessness. Drug addiction has been one of the leading causes of death in the US, which makes the issue of homelessness a significant area of study and research (Tompsett et al. 57).

Homelessness has been a pertinent issue since the 17 th Century, and up to date, it has not been fully addressed despite huge resources being devoted to the fight against the issue (Turnbull, Muckle, and Masters 1066). The US is among the few countries that have been at the forefront in the fight against the ever-worsening social problem (Toro 472).

However, this task has been insurmountable due to the shortage of funds and the increased number of legal and illegal immigrants in the US (Cronley 322). According to the “National Alliance to End Homelessness,” the only way to deal with the issue of homelessness is through the provision of permanent houses to all homeless individuals, and many policymakers support this argument.

The market value of rental houses is increasing tremendously, thus leading to a loss in the available houses for the poor in society (Atherton and Nicholls 140). This aspect has led to an increased number of homeless persons in the country as more people join the homelessness state. The high number of homeless people in the world, coupled with the numerous cases of new homelessness cases have prompted various organizations to come up with programs aimed at providing permanent solutions to the recurring problem (Shelton et al. 471).

The Obama administration, through the Opening Doors initiative, has stated its commitment to achieving zero cases of homelessness in a span of 10 years. Since the Opening Doors campaign was launched in 2010, the US has recorded a 21% decrease in the number of homeless persons (“National Alliance to End Homelessness” 32).

The program is slated to achieve zero homelessness by the year 2017. However, it faces insurmountable challenges, among them being the inadequacy of funds. In addition to the Opening Doors, which is an initiative sponsored by the Obama administration, the American government has put in place other projects aimed at containing the issue of homelessness.

Another program that has successfully reduced the number of homelessness in the US is the Federal Housing Program, which is designed to provide permanent houses to low-income earners. The overall program is comprised of two subprograms, viz. the public housing and the federal housing vouchers.

Since its implementation, the program has seen most homeless individuals acquire homes. The rent charged to tenants living in homes provided through the program is slightly lower than the market rates, and it is determined by considering the annual income of each household.

The Permanent Supportive Housing is another program, which has seen the number of homeless people reduce significantly. The program was launched in the 1980s to address the issue of homelessness amongst special groups such as the mentally challenged and the HIV/AIDS victims (Shelton et al. 467). This program, together with the HUD, has managed to deter the increase in the number of the homeless population through the provision of affordable housing to the target groups.

Raising awareness about the problem to the public through the media and other public forums is another effective way of fighting the issue of homelessness (Cronley 327). Raising awareness invites people and organizations to help with inputs in the form of opinions and funds. This aspect is a good strategy for eliminating homelessness in some parts of the world.

For example, the Cornerstone Christian Church in Vista allowed homeless persons living in the streets to occupy its parking lot, following the awareness raised by the media (Tompsett et al. 48). The church allows the people to use the lot until they acquire a job or after they are financially stable enough to cater for their housing needs. The church also provides counseling services to veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) coupled with those suffering from substance abuse.

This aspect has helped in the reduction of the number of individuals without homes since stress and substance abuse are closely linked with the issue of homelessness (Shelton et al. 465). Awareness also attracts non-governmental organizations and the international community to come and assist the suffering group through financial and other forms of donations.

The United Way of San Diego and Project 25 are good examples of organizations that have joined the fight against homelessness due to the creation of awareness. The organizations provide homeless individuals with addresses with a mailbox that helps the groups find jobs easily coupled with facilitating their involvement in communal activities.

The following suggestions should be considered in a bid to counter homelessness:

The government should initiate more programs to build houses for the homeless
Advocacy groups should be empowered to champion the campaign against homelessness
People exiting homelessness should be equipped with the necessary financial management skills in a bid to avoid the problem in the future.

Atherton, Iain, and Carol Nicholls. “‘Housing First’ as a means of addressing multiple needs and homelessness.” European Journal of Homelessness 2.1 (2008): 289-303. Print.

Cronley, Courtney. “Unraveling the social construction of homelessness.” Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment 20.2 (2010): 319-333. Print.

National Alliance to End Homelessness: The state of homelessness in America. Washington D.C: Homelessness Research Institute, 2015. Print.

Shelton, Katherine, Pamela Taylor, Adrian Bonner, Marianne Bree. “Risk factors for homelessness: evidence from a population-based study.” Psychiatric Services 60.4 (2009): 465-472. Print.

Tompsett, Carolyn, Paul Toro, Melissa Guzicki, Manuel Manrique, and Jigna Zatakia. “Homelessness in the United States: Assessing changes in prevalence and public opinion, 1993–2001.” American Journal of Community Psychology 37.2 (2006): 47-61. Print.

Toro, Paul. “Toward an international understanding of homelessness.” Journal of Social Issues 63.3 (2007): 461-481. Print.

Turnbull, Jeffrey, Wendy Muckle, and Christina Masters. “Homelessness and health.” Canadian Medical Association Journal 177.9 (2007): 1065-1066. Print.

Max Weber’s Thoughts on Poverty
The Homeless Population Reducing
Homelessness: Its Causes, Effects, and Prevention
Homelessness in the US
Mumbai Great Problem: Homelessness Problem in Cities
Suburbanisation of Poverty in the USA
The Solution to World Poverty by Peter Singer
The Poverty Across the US Culture
History and Modern Day Reasons
Minority Population at Risk: Homelessness
Chicago (A-D)
Chicago (N-B)

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The Importance Of Helping Homelessness In The United States

The National Alliance to End Homelessness and the Government should come together to create a solution to end the growing rate of the homeless people. As homelessness describes back in “1640s homelessness was seen as a moral of weakness, a character flaw” (America). If someone found one self in the 1600s homeless they had to prove themselves worthiness to the communities. However, if they could not show how worthy they were, they would be out of the town and headed out to a new one.

As of today, “over half of a million people are homeless. On one night or every day, there are over 600,000 homeless people in the U. S. , according to the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)” (10Facts). Most people are homeless spend the night either in homeless shelter, other living conditions such as cars, on the streets, under bridges, and parks. However, there is an organization called The National Alliance to End Homelessness (NAEH) is a United States organization that solves issues of the homelessness. The National Alliance to End Homelessness (NAEH) was created to design to aid the homeless and spread awareness of the situation that was occurring.

Not only, that they were to help “The National Alliance to End Homelessness is a leading voice on the issue of homelessness” (National). They work with the public, private, and nonprofit sectors to build state and local capacity, leading to stronger programs and policies that help communities achieve their goal of ending homelessness (National). When electing new officials, they will distribute new policy nationwide. The president Nan Roman of the NAEH, had stated, “Homelessness is a serious and devastating problem , but it is a problem that can be solved.

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