Giving Compass' Take:

• Being homeless puts more strain on health and other public services and the homelessness crisis in America has now become an issue that needs to be addressed, according to advocates and doctors around the country. 

• What can different sectors such as nonprofits, technology, and education do to help this crisis? 

• Learn about how these cities in the US ended chronic homelessness. 

WASHINGTON, March 7 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) — When Catherine Crosland sees patients in the US capital, her key concern is whether they have somewhere to live.

"The biggest social determinant of health is housing status," the doctor told the Thomson Reuters Foundation at a clinic below a Washington, DC, shelter.

Being homeless, she said, "causes risks to your health, lack of access to food and hygiene, the threat of violence, depression, and substance abuse."

Crosland is the medical director for homeless outreach services at Unity Health Care, a nonprofit focused on low-income communities in the capital. In that role she sees patients in clinics, on sidewalks and at encampments — and the effect a lack of housing has.

Read the full article about the US homelessness crisis by Carey L. Biron at Global Citizen.