Giving Compass' Take:

• Samantha Batko explains why communities should prioritize.rapid-rehouse for people who have been forced to live outside during COVID-19. 

• What resources can be deployed to address the needs of the unhoused population in your community? 

• Read about using the shared housing model to help those experiencing homelessness. 

Unsheltered homelessness was a crisis in America before COVID-19. On any given night in 2019, more than 210,000 people (PDF) in the US were forced to sleep outside—on sidewalks or benches, in cars or abandoned buildings. And the crisis has been growing, as the number of people enduring unsheltered homelessness grew 22 percent (PDF) between 2015 and 2019.

Black people, already overrepresented among people forced to live outside, and Latinx people make up significant shares of recent growth in the unsheltered homeless population (PDF), largely because of systemic racism and discrimination in the housing market, employment, and other systems throughout US history. And the unsheltered homelessness crisis could get even worse. One analysis predicts a 40 to 45 percent increase in homelessness caused by pandemic-related job losses. With Black and Latinx households seeing higher unemployment rates and reduced work hours and income during the pandemic, their overrepresentation among people experiencing homelessness could grow.

During the spread of COVID-19, the unsheltered homelessness crisis has garnered more attention, as images have gone viral of people living outside in socially distanced parking lots, with only painted lines separating them from hundreds of others around them.

People forced to live outside were already at a higher risk of spreading communicable diseases, and their living situations resulted in poor health outcomes (PDF). Given the greater likelihood that COVID-19 will spread among this group and the fact that Black and Latinx people face a greater risk of COVID-19 infection, protecting people enduring unsheltered homelessness should be a priority in community responses to COVID-19. But this largely hasn’t happened. As a result, most people enduring unsheltered homelessness have remained outside, and the continued use of police sweeps of homeless encampments puts people at even greater risk of contracting and spreading the virus.

As communities decide where to direct federal rental assistance during the pandemic, they should prioritize people enduring unsheltered homelessness. Rapid re-housing is an evidence-based solution that can help people leave homelessness and find stable housing. Investing in rapid re-housing can prevent people experiencing unsheltered homelessness from getting sick, slow the spread of COVID-19, and reduce the number of people involved with police encampment sweeps.

Read the full article about prioritizing rapid re-housing by Samantha Batko at Urban Institute.