When Homelessness Rates Rise

In 2016, national reductions in homelessness came to an end. While homelessness response systems continued to house more and more people each year, the increasing cost of housing, limited access to healthcare, and wages and income benefits that failed to keep up kept driving more and more people into homelessness each year.

Like trying to use a bucket to save a sinking ship, it is impossible to make progress if the rate of people becoming homeless is higher than the rate of people being housed. Homeless systems continue to do as much as they possibly can for the people they serve, working tirelessly every day to get better.  It makes me extremely proud to be associated with people in communities doing this work. But if we are going to make meaningful progress, we need others to step up.

The Alliance has been talking about “closing the front door” into homelessness since 2000. That means we need to boost the systems that prevent homelessness before people show up at our shelters: by providing more universal housing, increasing economic opportunity, and broadening access to quality supports and services, including those related to mental illness and substance use disorders. Efforts to improve federal policy in these areas have included improving funding for the Housing Choice Voucher program, working with housing organizations to focus on people with the lowest incomes, promoting Home- and Community-Based Services and other housing-related services in the Medicaid program, cofounding the Opportunity Starts at Home network of housing advocates, making HUD-VASH available to veterans at risk of homelessness, and other initiatives.

Read the full article about homelessness increases by Steve Berg at National Alliance to End Homelessness.