The US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) defines homelessness as:
- Living in a supervised publicly or privately operated shelter designated to provide temporary living arrangement; or
- With a primary nighttime residence that is a public or private place not designed for or ordinarily used as a regular sleeping accommodation for human beings, including a car, park, abandoned building, bus or train station, airport, or camping ground.
According to a recent HUD report, the US homeless population reached just under 554,000 in 2017 - the first rise in seven years. The big coastal cities, such as Los Angeles and New York, have contributed the most to this increase. A large majority of the US homeless are individuals without children (e.g., 92% in San Francisco) and most are mentally ill, physically disabled, and/or abuse various substances.
European countries are also seeing a rise in homelessness. But many European countries have done a much better job than the US in addressing homelessness. Take Denmark, where more than half of the homeless are mentally ill and “most lack the social skills and resources to negotiate the demands of ‘normal’ life”. Sounds a lot like the US homeless. Yet most Danish homeless are “without a home for only a short period of time”. How do the Danes do it? By following the "Housing First" approach to homelessness.
Next: what is the "Housing First" approach to homelessness?