Unhoused and misunderstood: Root causes of houselessness and the importance of affordable housing
Who is to blame for the epidemic of houselessness? Opinions swirl endlessly around us. We are treated to them regularly, via print, social and other media.
Some believe that addiction is the root cause of houselessness. But addiction itself is caused by an amalgamation of factors, including chronic stress, a history of trauma, PTSD, mental illness, or a family history of addiction. According to the Phoenix Recovery Center 2020 report “The Root Causes of Addition,” 59% of the addicted population have suffered debilitating childhood trauma.
For many, houselessness is just one disaster away. A medical emergency, loss of a job, car trouble, abandonment, divorce, lack of affordable housing, poverty, psychological, or physical disability can render individuals and families, the largest growing population, houseless.
Reasons for being unhoused vary, and often require different resources based on the cause. These four categories describe the types of houselessness: transitional, episodic, chronic and hidden. Not all categories initially relegate people to the streets.
In efforts to understand the issue, blame is often directed at nonprofit agencies, church groups, city councils, counties and law enforcement. Some believe that state agencies are at fault for insufficiently addressing the problem. Then there are those who condemn those experiencing houselessness as responsible themselves.
How did we get here? Currently, no one in any state in this country, earning minimum wage, can afford market-rate rent for a two-bedroom apartment. Who are the poorest renters? According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition's "Housing Needs by State," they are seniors, people with disabilities, veterans with PTSD, women and children escaping from domestic, physical and sexual violence. They are working people, students and caretakers.
Why do we have this crisis in a country with so much wealth? The contributors are income inequality, policy decisions, government budget priorities, societal trends and our attitudes toward public assistance. One such societal trend? We seek to fix the unhoused person rather than fixing the underlying structural issues.
At its source, today’s houselessness crisis is a socioeconomic problem rooted in 1980s politics. Only 1% of the unhoused were families, but by 2020 the number jumped to 30% due to policies enacted in this era. Poverty was criminalized and solutions were centered on policing and ultimately, prison. In March 1981, President Ronald Reagan presented a proposal to cut $47 billion from the federal budget, making major cuts to Medicaid, Social Security, unemployment and food programs for children.
Ultimately, a $35 billion cut was enacted. The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) funds were cut by 70% between 1980 to 1987 according to Marian Moser Jones’ “Creating a Science of Homelessness.” These cuts were enacted while the unemployment rate was averaging 9.7%. This major cut was never restored to the budget, by any president after, including Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.
Simultaneously, construction of new subsidized housing stopped, rents increased on those already built and the “cheaper” housing voucher program was introduced. Those who had been deinstitutionalized from mental hospitals in numerous states were discharged and given Greyhound bus tickets for California. Deinstitutionalization was often blamed for houselessness. The research focused solely on the individual and cultural pathology, rather than the economic and political causes of poverty.
Even before these budget cuts, the 1979 U.S. Government Accountability Office warned that a lack of affordable housing engendered a national crisis. HUD did not accept these findings, opting to accept a 1980 Rand Corporation study, which “found no evidence of a shortage in rental housing.” Instead of seeing the structural problem, the Reagan administration continued to produce policies that punished “character flaws.”
The exponential growth of the unhoused population proves how ineffective that criminalization was. Releasing jailed and fined people makes the problem unsolvable and is a waste of taxpayer dollars. Providing affordable housing and services has repeatedly proven to be more socially and economically feasible. While affordable housing does not solve the problem, it is an important and effective measure that prevents the descent into houselessness for those at risk.
As a society, we are not currently aligned on the root causes. Many still view houselessness as the individual’s fault and seek to further criminalize them. But understanding the socioeconomic basis of houselessness is critical. By providing services to interrupt the cycle that generates houselessness, we can anticipate positive change. Then it becomes our responsibility to elect representatives who reflect this position to carry our voice forward. After all, housing is a human right.
Based in Palm Springs, Joy Silver currently serves as the chief strategy officer for the Community Housing Opportunities Corporation, a nonprofit affordable housing developer that currently has two communities under construction, in Palm Springs and Coachella respectively. Her email is jsilver@chochousing.org.
This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Houselesseness and lack of affordable housing: History of systems
