"Over half a million people go homeless on a single night in the United States. Approximately 65 percent are found in homeless shelters, and the other 35 percent—just under 200,000—are found unsheltered on our streets (in places not intended for human habitation, such as sidewalks, parks, cars, or abandoned buildings).” The State of Homelessness in America September 2019/Council of Economic Advisers
Homelessness in the US is concentrated in major cities on the West Coast and the Northeast. Almost half of all unsheltered homeless people are found in California, while New York City alone contains over a fifth of all sheltered homeless people in the US. Why such variation in homelessness across communities? The Council of Economic Advisors (CEA) proposes four factors that influence the level of homelessness in a given area:
Availability of affordable housing
Conditions for sleeping on the street, such as mild weather.
Shelter systems, e.g., Right-to-Shelter systems with quality guarantees may pull in some people who would have otherwise remained housed.
Characteristics of individuals in the community, e.g., prevalence of mental illness and drug addiction.
The CEA makes a compelling case that simply providing the homeless with subsidized housing may actually increase homelessness over the long-term, because subsidized housing reduces the availability of unsubsidized housing, which drives up rents. In other words, if an increase of subsidized housing is unaccompanied by an increase in the supply of unsubsidized affordable housing, the newly homeless will replace the formerly homeless. The CEA argues for deregulation of housing markets to increase supply and suggest ways to limit overuse of housing subsidies, but they don’t address what to do about homeless individuals who may never be able to be fully self-sufficient. I’m talking about the chronically homeless, such as the many fragile souls we see on the streets of San Francisco, of whom:
Ninety-four (94%) were adults without children.
Sixty-seven percent (67%) were unsheltered
Sixty-three percent (63%) reported alcohol or substance use.
Fifty-three percent (53%) reported living with a psychiatric or emotional condition.
Forty-eight (48%) reported living with a chronic health problem.
Twenty-five percent (25%) reported receiving SSI, SSDI, or other disability benefits.
Despite high levels of reported disability, many of these individuals had not applied for any form of government assistance, of whom:
Thirty percent (30%) reported not having proper identification
Twenty-two percent (22%) cited the lack of a permanent address
Nineteen percent (19%) reported that they did not want any government assistance
The challenge of housing the chronically homeless is how to do it without breaking the bank, distorting the local housing market, or incentivizing dependency. This is what I suggest. Bring back a modern version of the residential hotel, with multi-tier housing units, from teeny rooms (bath down the hall), to studios and one-bedroom apartments. Rents for the smallest units - room enough for a bed, chair, dresser and table - would be completely subsidized.* Rents for the larger units would be partially subsidized, with the unsubsidized portion of rent increasing with unit size. The mid-sized studios (with their own bathrooms) would be affordable for most individuals receiving disability benefits, creating an incentive for disabled residents who had not applied for benefits to do so. In many cases, income from part-time jobs would be enough for residents without disabilities to afford the larger units. Thus, the tiered structure of units, subsidies and rents would incentivize constructive, goal-directed behavior on the part of residents. Maybe not total self-sufficiency but a move in the right direction.
The units would be manufactured off-site, keeping costs down. They would be sufficiently tiny to be unappealing as permanent housing except for those whose main alternative is to live on the streets. These residential hotels would not compete with other types of housing and thus not distort the local housing market. The hotels would be dispersed throughout cities and suburbs so as not to concentrate troubled individuals in one area. Temporary shelters would still be available for homeless individuals on the waiting list for permanent housing in residential hotels.
Once shelter is guaranteed, municipalities should then enforce no-camping laws and move people off the streets.
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* To maintain their commercial viability, residential hotels with temporary vacancies could rent out rooms for travelers. For more details, see Housing the Chronically Homeless - Affordably! Part I: Some Concrete Suggestions and Housing the Chronically Homeless - Affordably! Part II: Breaking Down The Costs.