What can be done about homelessness?

Resting in the lee of the 4th Avenue Parking Garage

Homelessness in America has burgeoned in recent years (DeParle 2023a), with the increasing visibility of unhoused people in public spaces creating concern across the political spectrum. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development estimated 653,104 people were homeless in January 2023, up 12 percent from the previous year. Prevalence varied by state, with the highest percentages tending to be in wealthier states (Fitzpatrick 2024).

Of course, the visible homeless are not close to the whole story; for every fellow you see "rough sleeping" in a city park, there are--nine? ten? 12?--others sleeping in their vehicles, staying with a succession of amenable friends, or in some other unstable arrangement. Nonetheless, it's their very visibility, and the fear of social disorder their presence creates, that is forcing cities to address the broader problem.

Homelessness is a wicked problem, with multiple tangled causes that are complicated to address. For starters, the whole housing market is a mess, as documented by Jenny Schuetz (Fixer-Upper: How to Repair America's Broken Housing Systems [Brookings Institution, 2022]), Shane Phillips (The Affordable City: Strategies for Putting Housing Within Reach and Keeping It There [Island, 2020]), and others. There isn't enough housing of any type or at any price point, except maybe the top end; housing is being built in low-demand areas rather where it would provide the most public benefit; and prices were rising even before the coronavirus pandemic upended supply chains. Both localities and existing residents have disincentives to address these (cf. Schuetz 2022 chs 6-7), and federal housing programs support fewer people than they did 20 years ago (DeParle 2023b). Some good news this week, though, where a Pew study finds some positive impact of Minneapolis's zoning reforms (Liang, Staveski and Horowitz 2024).

Nearly everyone is affected by this situation to some degree, but it stands to reason that the poorest and most vulnerable would suffer the most, and are either extremely cost-burdened or out of housing altogether. "The biggest driver of these numbers is the lack of affordable housing," says Ann Oliva of the National Alliance to End Homelessness (DeParle 2023a).

At the same time, substance addiction, immigration, and mental health are all at crisis levels. We seem to have turned the corner on opioid overprescription, but there remain all the people whose lives were ruined and struggle to receive treatment. Surges in immigration from Central and South America before and after the pandemic have been met with policy ranging from helplessness to hostility, and they too have been flung about the country and into the housing mess. ("This is partly a manufactured problem," Dennis Culhane of the University of Pennsylvania told The New York Times (DeParle 2023a)). It is widely acknowledged that, despite recent efforts, American mental health care does not approach covering all those who need it, particularly at the lowest income levels (cf. Wachino 2023).

Unaffordable housing, untreated substance addiction, untreated mental illness, and a broken immigration system all point to more people without housing. People with unstable lives are more prone to unemployment and health issues, which can contribute to being chronically homeless. Rising numbers have overwhelmed local services, with most people noticing when they appear in places like (in Cedar Rapids) Greene Square and the Cedar Rapids Public Library. Concern is sufficiently widespread that the issue found its way into the Downtown Vision and Action Plan approved last month. As part of the strategy to make downtown "safe and welcoming," initiative 2.2.2 proposed effectively ending homelessness with establishment of a Local Oversight Board and staff person to monitor performance on a community-wide basis, ensuring efficient and effective use of resources and continued collaboration with social service providers.

Ending homelessness is a laudable goal, but policy experience is sobering. Even cities credited with substantial success in reducing homelessness, like Houston and Minneapolis, got moderate rewards for strenuous efforts. Houston adopted a Housing First policy in 2011, and has seen a 63 percent reduction in homelessness since then, with 90 percent of the clients they housed remaining in permanent housing (McLean 2023). Along with placement in "safe, stable housing," clients are offered counseling services like substance abuse reduction and employment. Minneapolis, using a housing-first approach called Built for Zero, focused on housing the longest-term homeless and saw an 80 percent reduction since 2017 (Ionescu 2023, Holder 2023). Atlanta and Denver also saw significant decreases with a housing-first approach. But all this takes resources, and even in Houston available housing and willing landlords can be difficult to find. 

And substantial numbers of people remain unhoused. "People sometimes think we're Shangri-La and we have no homelessness," Houston task force leader Mark Eichenbaum told Nicholas Kristof of The New York Times. "No, we still have homelessness" (Kristof 2023). There surely is further concern among policy makers about effective local policy attracting greater numbers of transient people. 

Ending local homelessness can also mean using punitive policies to push the unhoused out of town. Some towns have wrecked encampments, as Cedar Rapids did in December 2022, or made public benches impossible to lie on ("hostile architecture"). A Missouri law--written by the Texas-based Cicero Institute, so expect it in Iowa soon--forbids sleeping on public land, with stringent penalties for municipalities that allow it, while slashing state funding for housing. Former President Donald J. Trump wants to force the homeless into urban camps (DeParle 2023b, Swanson 2023). These policies try to ensure that no one deemed unworthy receives a dime of public benefits, the same motivation for states like Iowa that are rejecting federally-funded summer meals for poor children.

Homelessness is a problem, one no one should have to live with. But we have a choice, whether to treat the unhoused as fellow human beings or as "vermin"--to use one of Trump's favorite words--or as political pawns. How we respond to homeless people says a lot about how we view our own place in the common life. 

In the nearer term, what should be done about the burgeoning "skid row" in and around Greene Square? It may already being done, which is a story for another day. I refer the impatient to chapter 5 (on parks) in Jane Jacobs's brilliant and timeless The Death and Life of Great American Cities (Modern Library, [1961] 2012). If you want more, check chapter 14 on border vacuums.

FORTHCOMING: Charles Marohn Jr and Daniel Herriges, Escaping the Housing Trap: The Strong Towns Response to the Housing Crisis (Wiley, 2024)

OLDER POSTS:

"What We Can Do About Housing," 18 March 2022

"Housing Policy," 1 July 2021