This brief is based on a new Urban Institute Press book, Helping America’s Homeless: Emergency Shelter or Affordable Housing? by Urban Institute researchers Martha Burt, Laudan Y. Aron, and Edgar Lee, with Jesse Valente. Both publications were funded mainly by the Melville Charitable Trust and the Fannie Mae Foundation.

The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Institute, its trustees, or its sponsors.

Homelessness did not disappear in the 1990s, despite the nation’s economic boom. In fact, it appears to have increased. On any given day, at least 800,000 people are homeless in the United States, including about 200,000 children in homeless families.1 These startling statistics, however, do not tell the whole story.

Homelessness in America is a "revolving-door" crisis. Many people exit homelessness quickly, but many more individuals become homeless every day. During a year’s time, four or five times as many people experience homelessness as are homeless on any particular day. Calculations from different sources show that in the late 1990s at least 2.3 million, and perhaps as many as 3.5 million, people experienced homelessness at some time during an average year. Because more families with children than un-partnered people enter and leave homelessness during a year, families represent a relatively large share of the annual population. As a result, during a typical year, between 900,000 and 1.4 million children are homeless with their families.

Annual homelessness figures exceed 1 percent of the total U.S. population and may represent as much as 10 percent of all poor people in this country. Even though many of these people are homeless for only a short time, each spell can be devastating. With 1 out of every 10 poor people in America facing homelessness at some time during an average year, current policies clearly are not working. Homelessness stems from desperate poverty combined with unaffordable housing in communities too strapped to support their most troubled members. These circumstances explain why between 5 and 10 percent of poor people experience homelessness in a period as short as a year.

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Personal difficulties, such as mental disabilities or job loss, may increase vulnerability to homelessness, but they cannot explain the high number of people who fall into homelessness every year. And housing market trends indicate that the situation is getting worse rather than better. Current levels of housing costs, coupled with low-wage jobs and economic contraction, could push even the working poor out of their homes. Although the availability of homeless services increased significantly during the past decade, meeting the needs of people once they become homeless is not enough.

A concerted national strategy is needed to prevent homelessness, and to end quickly discrete episodes of homelessness if they become inevitable. That strategy must include new housing resources as well as community-building strategies that address the societal factors contributing to homelessness. Each community must work to supply affordable housing, improve schools, and provide support services for those in need. Only strategies that address systemic problems as well as provide emergency relief can eliminate homelessness in this country.

WHY HOMELESSNESS HERE, AND WHY NOW?

Structural, personal, and political factors influence the level of homelessness and determine where it will occur most often. Structural factors in the United States that have fueled the problem include

• Changing housing markets for extremely low-income families and single adults are pricing more and more people with below-poverty incomes out of the market.
• Dwindling employment opportunities for people with a high school education or less are contributing to the widening gap between rich and poor.
• The removal of institutional supports for people with severe mental illness, epitomized by drastic reductions in the use of long-term hospitalization for the mentally ill, are leaving many individuals with few housing options.
• Racial, ethnic, and class discrimination in housing, along with local zoning restrictions that exclude affordable housing alternatives, persists in many areas.

If housing were inexpensive, or people could earn enough to afford housing, very few individuals would face homelessness. But housing costs have risen steadily across the country, and they have skyrocketed in many areas. Further, the inability to afford housing is concentrated among households with incomes below the poverty level,2 whose members account for the vast majority of people entering homelessness. At the same time, people with little education or job training find it increasingly difficult to earn enough money to raise their incomes above the poverty level, even if they are employed full-time and work overtime.

Once structural factors have created the conditions for homelessness, personal factors can increase a person’s vulnerability to losing his or her home. Many factors can make a poor person more susceptible to homelessness, including limited education or skills training, mental or physical disability, lack of family to rely on (e.g., after being placed in foster care), and alcohol or drug abuse. But without the presence of structural fault lines, these personal vulnerabilities could not produce today’s high level of homelessness.

Public policies may moderate the effects of both structural and personal factors to prevent homelessness. Some European countries guarantee their citizens housing, and many provide supports for families (e.g., infant and child care and income subsidies) well beyond those available in the United States. Universal health insurance is also available in most European countries. These safety net programs reduce the probability of homelessness, even in places where housing costs are high and wages are low, because they ease the pressure on household budgets.

In the United States, dramatic reductions in federally supported housing over the past 20 years, coupled with the current reductions in safety net programs, place individuals and families squeezed by high housing costs and with few resources at high risk of homelessness. A certain proportion of these people will experience at least a brief episode during which they lack a place to live. If they are struggling with substance abuse, mental illness, or both, and reside in an area where housing is increasingly beyond the reach of low-wage worker households, then homelessness is likely.

On any given day, the adult population using homeless assistance programs consists mostly of men by themselves (61 percent). Another 15 percent are women by themselves, 15 percent are households with children, and 9 percent are people with another adult but not with children.2 Because families are mostly likely to qualify for public assistance programs, they are less likely than individuals to be homeless, or to be homeless for long. Unattached adults are not eligible for most safety net programs, so they are more likely to be homeless and to experience long or repeated spells of homelessness.

In terms of racial and ethnic composition, little difference exists between homeless families and single adults. About equal proportions (40 to 41 percent) are African American and White, 11 to 12 percent are Hispanic, 6 to 8 percent are Native American, and 1 percent are another race. The high representation of minorities in the homeless population compared with housed people stems from their higher likelihood of being very poor and has no correlation to their race or ethnicity. Geographically, 71 percent of homeless people who rely on homeless assistance programs reside in central cities, 21 percent in suburban or urban fringe areas, and 9 percent in rural areas.

Income and Work

Half of all homeless adults receive less than $300 per month–in income, putting them at about 30 to 40 percent of the federal poverty level. In addition, 62 percent have at least a high school diploma, and 44 percent did some work for pay in the month before being surveyed, although only 13 percent held a regular job. Almost half get one or more means-tested public benefits, with food stamps by far the most common type of assistance. Homeless families’ welfare eligibility accounts, in part, for the level of income they report; most single people’s ineligibility for welfare helps explain their very low incomes.

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