Social Housing:  
The Solution to Homelessness

The evidence is clear — high housing costs are what causes homelessness. Other factors might increase the risk, but when deeply affordable, accessible housing is widely available, everyone can have stable, long-term housing.

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Punitive responses to homelessness exacerbate illness and substance abuse disorders rather than ameliorating them, and criminalization plays a particularly egregious role in perpetuating homelessness among Black and indigenous people.

 

Today we lack enough supply of deeply affordable, accessible housing because policy-makers at all levels have disinvested from proven solutions like the public housing program, while our under-regulated housing system encourages corporate landlords and investors to treat people’s homes like speculative assets, raising rents to wring out every ounce of profit.

 

Social housing is the most important long-term solution to the problems behind skyrocketing homelessness. Download our full paper on social housing and homelessness or read on below: