To stop homelessness, we need to build more housing

Since their numbers began to surge in American cities in the late 1970s, unsheltered people have been seen with a mix of compassion and vexation. Now, about 50 years into the homelessness crisis, the culture may be leaning toward vexation. The unsheltered population has increased every year since 2016. And in some places, this has become more starkly visible in encampments.

Too often, we focus on mental health and substance abuse challenges at the expense of recognizing the economic forces that drive homelessness. The crucial reason most people experience homelessness is a shortage of affordable housing. That is why the homeless population has grown quickly in cities with tightening housing markets, and slowly, or not at all, in markets that are not tightening. In order to solve homelessness in Philadelphia, we need to build more housing.

Roughly one out of every 295 Philadelphians was homeless on the night of Jan. 24, 2024. That night, 5,191 homeless people were counted, 4,215 of whom were staying in our publicly supported homeless shelters. A further 976 people were unsheltered, residing in a place “not meant for human habitation,” such as cars, parks, or sidewalks.

Since 2004, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has required that its grantees count unsheltered homeless people — colloquially, “street people” — in their communities. Before an unsheltered person can be counted, they must first be located and surveyed (to prevent double-counting). All of this happens in the middle of the night.

Last June, in Johnson v. Grants Pass, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Grants Pass, Ore., could outlaw sleeping in public places. The decision reversed a ruling in the Ninth Circuit that held it would be “cruel and unusual” to punish people for sleeping in public when no alternative shelter was provided. Many jurisdictions and their representatives, both blues and reds, prepared amicus briefs registering exasperation at increasing homelessness in their towns, the bad behavior of their homeless residents, and the challenges of complying with a shelter-for-all mandate.

On Page 5 of the majority opinion, Justice Neil Gorsuch highlights the conundrum of homeless people refusing shelter services. While not casting aspersions on individuals — “The reasons why the unsheltered sometimes reject offers of assistance may themselves be many and complex” — these passages of the opinion portray homelessness as an emerging lifestyle choice that is somehow separate from issues of shelter and housing supply.

Well, what is homelessness if not “complex”? Gorsuch, and Justice Sonia Sotomayor in her dissent, keep coming back to that word. “Complexity” has a way of foregrounding an individual’s personal history or identity (veteran status, disability, motherhood), or behaviors (refusal of shelter services, drug use). Sometimes this can be well-intended, but “complexity” also suggests that each case is special; it downplays the broader economic forces at play.

We would do better to keep it simple.

For most unsheltered people, secure housing is the best starting point for assistance. Over three decades of experience have shown that most unsheltered people can stay successfully in “supportive housing” (housing provided with on-site social services).

The next presidential administration seeks to explain homelessness in terms of individual choices and pathologies. In footnotes for his Project 2025 chapter about HUD, former HUD Secretary Ben Carson implies that the cause of homelessness is “behavioral,” not “circumstantial.” His theory is that “resolving the issue of homelessness is often a matter of resolving mental health and substance abuse challenges.” Carson claims that the Housing First approach of permanent supportive housing does not “attempt to understand the underlying causes,” and recommends that HUD should shift away from this model to a transitional (temporary) model.

Carson’s theory badly misunderstands the experience of most unsheltered people in that it does not admit the relationship between homelessness and the housing supply. Was it Jane Doe’s anxiety disorder that caused her to become homeless, or her rent going up? How does Carson conceptualize unsheltered people who do not have a mental illness or a substance abuse disorder?

We will see to what extent Project 2025 is implemented, but we should be wary of cuts to permanent supportive housing from the new administration. Focusing on the economic cause of the homelessness crisis is the best way to set public spending priorities. If we understand macroeconomics to be a driver of the problem, perhaps this helps us to react to it more sensibly, and find compassion more easily.

Homeless Philadelphians are, after all, our neighbors.

Andrew Pirie is a resident of Philadelphia who follows housing and homelessness issues. Philadelphia’s 2025 point-in-time count is scheduled for Jan. 22 at 10 p.m., two days after Donald Trump’s inauguration. If you are interested in volunteering, register here: surveymonkey.com/r/2025PITCount